| Term | Definition |
|---|
| evolution | process by which modern organisms have descended from ancient organisms (better adapt to environment); change over time |
| Beagle | 1831: Darwin on the H.M.S ______; collected plant and animal specimens (around the world); filled many notebooks with observations (naturalist) |
| theory | contribution: ______ [well-supported testable explanation of phenomena that have occurred in the natural world]of evolution; organisms change over time |
| observations | plants & animals were well suited to environments they inhabited; organisms survived & produced offspring (genetics); regions were similar but inhabited by differet animals; collected fossils |
| fossils | preserved remains of ancient organisms |
| Galàpagos Islands | formed from volcanoes; close together but with different climates |
| Inquiry | animals living on different islands had once been members of the same species; common ancestors |
| Earth | _____ is many millions of years old, and the processes that changed _____ in the past are the same processes that operate in the present |
| Lamarck's Evolution Hypotheses | inheritance of acquired characteristics; selective use of disuse of organs, organisms acquired or lost certain traits during their lifetime; these traits could then be passed on to their offspring (individuals) |
| Tendency towards perfection | organisms have an innate tendency toward complexity & perfection (perfectly suited for their environment) |
| Lamarck | did not know how traits are inherited; that an organism's behavior has no effect on its heritable characteristics |
| Malthus's Theory | reasoned that if the human population continued to grow unchecked, sooner or later there would be insuffcient lving space and food for everyone |
| On the Origins of Species | filled notebooks about species diversity and the evolution process |
| natural selection | mechanism for evolution; survival of the fittest; nature selects organisms with favorable characteristics |
| artificial selection | human interference with nature |
| struggle for existence | members of each species compete regularly to obtain food, living space, and other necessities of life |
| fitness | ability of an individual to survive & reproduce in ts specific environment |
| adaptation | any inherited characteristic that increases an organism's chance of survival |
| Descent with modification | each living species has descended, with changes from other species over time (generation slightly different from previous) |
| common descent | all living organisms are related to one another; common ancestor |
| evidence of evolution | fossil record; geographic distribution; homologous structures; embryology |
| geogrpahic distribution | different species, resemble each other |
| homologous structures | structures that are similar because of varied use are different |
| vestigial organs | organs of many animals are so reduced in size that they are just vestiges, or traces, of homologous organs in other species |
| embryology | organisms looked similar at one point because of the similarities in the early development of an embryo |
| summary of Darwin's Theory | individual organisms differ & some of this variation is heritable; organisms produce more offspring than can survive, & many that do survive do not reproduce [compete or limited resources]; individuals best suited to their environment survive & reproduce most sucessfully; organisms pass heritable traits to offspring; others die or leave fewer offspring; natural selection causes species to change over time; species today descended with modification from ancestral species that lived in the distant past [diverse species evolved from common ancestors whites all organisms on Earth into a single tree of life] |
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