Evolution Vocab Flashcards
The process of becoming adapted to an environment; a change that improves a populations’ ability to survive.
Adaptations
A group of organisms that are closely related and can mate to produce fertile offspring.
Species
A system of ideas that explains many related observations and is supported by a large of evidence acquired through scientific investigation.
Theory
The process by which individuals that are better adapted to their environment survive and reproduce more successfully then less well adapted individuals do; a theory to explain mechanism evolution.
Natural selection
The trace or remains of an organism that lived long ago, most commonly preserved in sedimentary rock.
Fossils
A rock that forms from compressed or cemented layers of sediment.
Sedimentary rock
A process of fossilization in which organic matter is replaced by inorganic matter.
Petrifaction
In geology, a mark or cavity made in a sedimentary surface by a shell or other body.
Mold
A type of fossil that forms when sediments fill in the cavity left by a decomposed organism.
Cast
A method of determining whether an event or object, such as a fossil,is older or younger than other events or objects without referring to the object’s age in years.
Relative dating
Any method that measures the age of an object or event in years rather than measuring the age relatively or another or another object or event; one such method is radio metric dating.
Absolute dating
A historical sequence of life indicated by fossils found in layers of the Earth’s crust.
Fossil record
Describes a species that has died out completely.
Extinct
A diagram that is based on patterns shared, derived traits and that shows the evolutionary relationships between groups of organisms.
Cladogram/ branching tree
A change in a nucleotide- base sequence of a gene or DNA molecule.
Mutation
