| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Population | Consists of all the individuals of a species that live in a specific geographical area and that can interbreed |
| Natural selection | Individuals that have physical or behavioral traits that better suit their environment are more likely to survive and will reproduce more successfully than those that do not have such traits |
| Adaption | A feature that has become common in a population because the feature provides a selective advantage |
| Reproductive isolation | The condition in which two populations of the same species do not breed with one another because of their geographic isolation |
| Gradualism | A model of evolution in which gradual change over a long period of time leads to species formation |
| Punctuated equilibrium | A model of evolution, in which periods of rapid change in species are seperated by periods of little or no change |
| Paleontologists | Scientists who study fossils |
| Vestigial structures | A structure in an organism that is reduced in size and function and that may have been complete and fuctional in the organism's ancestors |
| Homologous structures | Structures that share a common ancestory |
| Divergence | The accumulation of differences between groups |
| Speciation | The process by which new species form |
| Subspecies | Over time, populations of the same species that differ genetically because of adaptions to different living conditions |
Combine with other sets
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