CASAN234 Lecture Content Week 1-2 Vocab

Great Chain of Being

concept that living beings were hierarchically organized from plants at the bottom to God at the top

Permanency and Immutability of Species

belief system where species were fixed and unchangeable

Life

things with the unique ability to replicate

Replicate

living things making copies of themselves

Variation

all the differences that exist between individuals in a population

Selection Pressure

any external force or environmental factor that influences the survival and reproductive success of individuals in a population

Inheritance

how hereditary information is passed from parents to offspring

Differential reproduction

some individuals pass genes to the next generation and others do not

Adaptations

traits that allow an organism to survive and reproduce by meeting the challenges of the environment

Homology

traits of different organisms that exist because they have been inherited from a common ancestor

Artificial Selection

humans select which individuals in a species breed

Pesticide Resistance

Artificial selection of insects that become more resistant to pesticides

Antibiotic Resistence

Artificial selection of bacteria that become more resistant to antibiotics

Mutations

Random changes in the genotype

Genotype

The A’s, C’s, T’s, and G’s that make up DNA

Specialized

a thing that tends to do one thing or a related set of things very well but do other things poorly

Complex

adaptations usually have many different parts and features

Integration

features all working together for a particular function

Optimality

meeting challenges of the environment as efficiently or economically as possible

Evolutionary mismatch

traits were once advantageous becoming disadvantageous in a changed environment

Obligate Adaptations

adaptations expressed in the same way, regardless of environment

Facultative Adaptations

adaptations requiring “input” from the environment in order to be expressed adaptively

Byproduct

traits or characteristics that don’t solve adaptive problems, don’t have functional design, and don’t lead to reproductive success

Reverse engineering

looking at all features of a trait in order to deduce its function and to figure out what it has evolved to do

Comparative method

comparing traits of different species to figure out what each has evolved to do

Convergence

occurs when two distantly related species have adaptations that essentially converge on a common solution to a problem

Divergence

occurs when two closely related species have different traits

Naturalistic fallacy

a type of logical error in which one assumes that what is found in nature is necessarily good/ethical/moral, or that what is “unnatural” is necessarily bad

Reproduction of the Fittest

survival is just a means to reproductive success

Selfish-gene perspective

Though living things are mortal, genes can be immortal through the copies that are passed down

Reproductive success

refers to the ability of an organism to pass on its genes to the next generation through successful reproduction