Bio chapter 16 Darwin

Evolution

The development of new species from preexisting types of organisms over time.

Theory

A well tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.

Fossil

Preserved remains or evidence of an ancient organism.

Galapagos Islands

The most famous stop on Darwin's journey around the world.

James Hutton

This scientist suggested that the earth is very old.

Charles Lyell

This scientist insisted that science must explain the past in terms of processes they can observe in the present.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

This scientist proposed the first hypothesis for evolution.

Thomas Malthus

This economist suggested that populations can only be controlled by war, famine, or disease.

Artificial Selection

Humans select the most desirable characteristics in plants and animals.

Struggle for Existence

Members of each species compete for food, space, and other necessities.

Fitness

The ability of an organism to survive and reproduce.

Adaptation

Any inherited characteristic that increases an organism's fitness.

Survival of the Fittest

The fittest organisms are the most likely to survive and reproduce.

Natural Selection

The process by which organisms best suited to their environment survive and leave more offspring.

Descent with Modification

Each living species has descended with changes from other species over time.

Common Descent

All species, living and extinct, are descended from a common ancestor.

Homologous Structures

Structures that have different mature forms, but develop from the same embryonic tissues.

Vestigial Structures

Body parts that have no current function.

Embryology

The scientific study of the early development of embryos.

Charles Darwin

This scientist came up with our current Theory of Evolution.

Biogeography

The scientific study of where organisms live now and where their ancestors lived in the past.

Analogous Structures

Body parts on different organisms that share a common function, but not structure.

Fossil Record

All of the fossils ever found and put into their proper order are known as the…

Uniformitarianism

The idea that the processes that shaped the Earth in the past must be the same as the processes that shape the Earth today.

Transitional Forms

fossils that connect ancestral species with their descendants through a series of tiny steps

Missing Links

gaps in the fossil record

Alfred Russel Wallace

a naturalist who had the same thoughts on evolutionary change as Darwin

1809

Darwin was born

1831

Darwin started his voyage

1836

Darwin's voyage ended

1858

Wallace sends Darwin a manuscript

1859

Darwin publishes The Origin of Species

Peter and Rosemary Grant

studied finch evolution on the Galapagos Islands in the 1970s