Evolution

1. Evolution

2. The process of biological change by which descendants come to differ their ancestors. • Evolution

3. A Swedish botanist in the 1700’s who developed a classification system for the organisms known at this time • Carolus Linnaeus

4. A group of organisms so similar to one another that they can reproduce and have fertile offspring • species

5. A French naturalist of the 1700’s who suggested that species shared ancestors. He also rejected that the Earth was only 6,000 years old • Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon

6. Born in 1731, this was a respected English doctor and poet. He proposed that all living things descended from a common ancestor and that more complex forms arose from less complex forms. • Erasmus Darwin

7. In 1809, a French naturalist who proposed that all organisms evolved toward perfection and complexity. He did not believe in extinction, but he did believe that organisms evolved. • Jean- Baptiste Lamarck

8. He proposed that changes in an environment caused an organisms behavior to change, leading to greater use or disuse of a structure or organ. The organism would pass on these changes to offspring. • Lamarck

9. The French zoologist who did not believe in evolution but did believe in extinction. He observed that each stratum, or rock layer, held specific fossils. • Georges Cuvier

10. Traces of organisms that existed in the past. • fossils

11. A theory that states that natural disasters such as floods and volcanic eruptions have happened often during Earth’s long history • catastrophism

12. A Scottish geologist who proposed that the changes he observed in landforms resulted from slow changes over a long period of time • James Hutton

13. A belief that landforms change slowly over time • gradualism

14. The English geologist who wrote the book Principles of Geology in the 1830’s. Charles Darwin read this book and was inspired by it. • Charles Lyell

15. An expansion of gradualism that states that the geologic processes that shape Earth are constant through time. Essentially, the processes that occur today, also happened in the past. • Uniformitarianism

16. What concepts about the Earth did Hutton and Lyell agree upon? • That changes occur gradually.

17. What are the key differences between the theories of gradualism and catastrophism? • Gradualism emphasizes slow changes on Earth over long periods of time, while catastrophism emphasizes change through natural disasters.

18. In 1831, what ship did Darwin take that enabled him to travel around the world for 5 years collecting specimens and making observations of land? • The HMS Beagle

19. The differences in the physical traits of an individual from those of other individuals in the group to which it belongs. • variation

20. Variation that occurs among members of different species. • Interspecific variation

21. Variation that occurs among individuals of the same species • Intraspecific variation

22. A feature that allows an organism to better survive in its environnment • adaption

23. What could account for fossils of marine organisms being found on top of modern day mountain ranges? • Land that was once a marine environment could be uplifted by Earth processes and becomes terrestial.

24. What accounts for the variation Darwin observed among island species? • The islands had different environments, and the organisms had adaptations that enabled the organism to live in those environments

25. The process by which humans change a species by breeding it for certain traits • Artificial selection

26. What is the selective agent in artificial selection? • humans

27. The ability of a trait to be passed down from one generation to the next • heritability

28. What is the selective agent for traits in nature? • The environment

29. A mechanism by which individuals that have inherited beneficial adaptations produce more offspring on average than do other individuals • Natural Selection

30. Natural limits to population growth proposed by economist Thomas Malthus • Food, water, shelter, disease also limits growth

31. All individuals of a species that live in an area • population

32. An aspect of evolution by which adaptations arose over many generations • Descent with modification

33. What English naturalist independently developed a theory similar to Darwin’s? • Alfred Russel Wallace

34. The four main principles to the theory of natural selection are • Variation • Overproduction • Adaptation • Descent with modification

35. A measure of the ability to survive and produce more offspring relative to other members of the population in a given environment. • fitness

36. Natural selection acts on ________ rather than on genetic material itself. • phenotypes

37. What two ecologists observed an example of natural selection among finches on the Galapagos island? • Peter and Rosemary Grant

38. When scientists study fossils, they take into account _______, ________,and________ • Age • Location • What the environment was like when the organism it came from was alive.

39. Darwin noted that island species most closely resembled species on the nearest_________ • mainland

40. The study of the distribution of organisms around the world. • biogeography

41. Fish , birds, reptiles, and mammals all have _____ ____ as embryo’s • Gill slits

42. What does similar features of embryo’s in different organisms suggest? • Evolution from a distant common ancestor

43. Features that are similar in structure but appear in different organisms and have different functions. • Homologous structures

44. Structures that perform a similar function but are not similar in origin • Analogous structures

45. Provide an example of a homologous structure • Human hand and bat wing

46. Provide an example of an analogous structure • Insect wings, bird wings

47. Underdeveloped or unused features that are remnants of organs or structures that had a function in an early ancestor. • Vestigial structure

48. What type of structure would you call the stump-like limbs of a snake? • vestigial

49. Why are structures considered critical evidence of evolution? • They are homologous to full-size features and evidence of common ancestry among organisms that share them.

50. Describe how some of the Galapagos finch species, which traditionally were seed eaters, evolved over generations to prefer insects over seeds. • On some islands, insects might have been more abundant than seeds, or there might have been less competition for insects than for seeds. The feeding behavior must have been heritable to become common in the population over time.