Chapter 16 Notes - Principles of Evolution

Thomas Mathus

________ was an economist, he published a book which stated that babies were being born faster than people were dying.

Radioactive dating

________ indicates that Earth is about 4.5 bil years old- plenty of time for evolution by natural selection to take place.

Vestigial structures

________- inherited from ancestors but have lost much of their original size and function.

Lyells

________ principles of geology: the same process that changed the Earth in the past still operate in the present.

Biogeography

________- the study of where organisms live now and where they and their ancestor lived in the past.

evolutionary theory

The ________ helps us understand and respond to important events such as the emergence of drug- resistant bacteria and new strains of influenza (flu)

Principle

________ of common descent- all species, living and extinct, are united by descent from ancient common, and exhibit diversity due to natural selection and adaptation.

Fitness

________- the ability of an animal to survive and reproduce in its specific environment.

Fossils

________- the preserved remains or traces of ancient organisms.

Evolution

________- change in living things over time.

James Hutton

________ and Charles Lyell- concluded that Earth is extremely old and that the processes that changed Earth in the past are the same processes that operate in the present.

Natural selection

________- the process by which organisms in nature with variations most suited to their local environment survive and leave more offspring.

fossil species

Patterns in the distribution of living and ________, combined with information from geology, tell us how modern organisms evolved from their ancestors.

theory of evolution

He was one of the first people to realize that organisms are adapted to their environments and to propose a(n) ________.

Natural heritable variation

________ affects the ability to survive and reproduce, and fitness varies among individuals.

Darwin

________ observed that individual organisms differed from one another and that variation could be inherited.

natural selection

In both artificial and ________, only certain individuals produce offspring, but in ________ it is the environment, not a farmer or breeder, that influences fitness.

Darwin

________ developed a theory of biological evolution that offered a scientific explanation for the unity and diversity of life by proposing how modern organisms evolved through descent from common ancestors.

Natural selection

________ occurs in any situation in which more individuals are born than can survive.