Fundamentals exam 3 Pt 1

What is Intelligent Design?

The theory that life, or the universe, cannot have arisen by chance and was designed and created by some intelligent entity.

What is Natural Selection?

The process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring.

What is Teleology?

The explanation of phenomena by the purpose they serve rather than by postulated causes.

What is Adaptation?

A characteristic that enhances the survival or reproduction of organisms that bear it relative to alternative character states.

What is Fitness in biological terms?

Reproductive success as measured by the average per capita rate of increase; it includes survival and reproduction.

What are the levels of selection?

Genic selection, individual selection, and group selection.

What does Aposematism refer to?

A warning signal to potential predators that prey are toxic or noxious.

What is Batesian Mimicry?

The resemblance in appearance of a palatable or harmless species to an unpalatable or dangerous species.

What is Müllerian Mimicry?

The resemblance of an unpalatable or dangerous species to another unpalatable or dangerous species.

What is the Competitive Exclusion Principle?

Two competing species that use exactly the same resources cannot coexist indefinitely; one will eventually be driven to extinction.

What is Resource (or Niche) Partitioning?

Species divide limited resources to reduce competition.

What is Character Displacement?

The phenomenon where differences among similar species whose distributions overlap geographically are accentuated in regions where the species co-occur.

What is Group Selection?

A mechanism in which natural selection may favor an increase in fitness of a group of organisms, despite a reduction in individual fitness.

What is Altruism in biology?

The behavior of an animal that benefits another at the expense of its own fitness.

What is Kin Selection?

Natural selection in favor of behavior by individuals that increases the chance of survival of their kin.

What is Preadaptation?

A character trait that originally evolved for a particular function that later served a new and different function.

What is Exaptation?

A more recent term for preadaptation as it does not have teleological implications.

What is the Naturalistic Fallacy?

What is natural, isn't necessarily 'good'; terms like moral or immoral cannot describe and do not apply to natural selection.