SG 3- Intro To Evolution

Question 1

Adaptation

Answer 1

Processes and structures by which organisms adjust to their environment

Question 2

Adaptive Radiation

Answer 2

Processes in whereby a single ancestral organism evolves into a wide array of descendent species that differ greatly in their forms, behaviors and/or habitats

Question 3

(Biological) Evolution

Answer 3

The phenomenon that a population of organisms changes from one generation to the next. (Some organisms become more successful at survival and reproduction.)

Question 4

(Biological) Fitness

Answer 4

The relative likelihood that one genotype will contribute to the gene pool of the next generation in comparison to other genotypes

Question 5

Cambrian Explosion

Answer 5

An event that occurred during the Cambrian period (543mya-490mya) in which there was an abrupt increase in the diversity of animal species

Question 6

Catalyst

Answer 6

An agent that speeds up chemical reactions without being consumed during the reaction

Question 7

Heritable phenotypic variation

Answer 7

The variability of phenotypes that exist in a population with the potential of being passed to the next generation

Question 8

Phenotype

Answer 8

Characteristics that result from gene expression

Question 9

Mass extinction

Answer 9

When many species become extinct at the same time

Question 10

Mutation

Answer 10

Heritable changes in an organisms genetic material

Question 11

Population

Answer 11

A group of individual organisms that can occupy the same environment and can interbreed

Question 12

Reproductive Success

Answer 12

The likelihood of an organism contributing fertile offspring to the next generation

Question 13

RNA World*

Answer 13

A hypothetical period on primitive earth where RNA contained both the info needed for life and the enzymatic activity of living cells

Question 14

Species

Answer 14

A group of related organisms that share a distinctive form and can interbreed

Question 15

Trait

Answer 15

Identifiable characteristic. Often refers to variants

Question 16

Alfred Russel Wallace

Answer 16

A British Naturalist who shared the same ideas as Darwin. Emphasized the component of design and intelligence in evolution. Co founder of natural selection

Question 17

Inheritance of acquired characteristics/ Lamarckian evolution

Answer 17

The incorrect hypothesis that species change over the course of many generations by adapting to new environment

Question 18

Charles Darwin

Answer 18

Suggested that existing species derived from preexisting species. Stated that evolution is “the theory of descent with modification through variation and natural selection”

Question 19

Natural Selection

Answer 19

Individuals with heritable traits that make them better suited to their environment tend to flourish and reproduce

Question 20

Fossil

Answer 20

Recognizable preserved remains of past life. Show successive evolutionary change

Question 21

Analogous Structures

Answer 21

Convergent evolution. Structures that arise independently 2+ times because species have occupied similar environments

Question 22

Artificial selection/ Selective breeding

Answer 22

Programs/procedures designed to modify the traits in domesticated species

Question 23

Homology

Answer 23

Fundamental similarities due to descent from common ancestors

Question 24

Homologous Structures

Answer 24

Structures that are similar because they derive from a common ancestor

Question 25

Vestigial Structures

Answer 25

Anatomical structure with no apparent function that resembles structures from a presumed ancestor

Question 26

Transitional Form

Answer 26

An intermediate state. Organism that provides a link between earlier and later forms in evolution