Descent with Modification & Microevolution

Vocabulary flashcards based on lecture notes about Descent with Modification & Microevolution.

Artificial selection

Selective breeding to produce desirable traits.

Selective Breeding

The process of humans using animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits by choosing which typically animal or plant males and females will sexually reproduce and have offspring together

Homologous structures

Structures in different species that are similar because of common ancestry.

Common ancestry

A group of organisms share common descent if they have a common ancestor

Vestigial structures

Structures in an organism that have lost all or most of their original function in the course of evolution.

Analogous structures

Structures in different species that perform the same function, but have evolved separately; do not share a common ancestor.

Convergent evolution

The independent evolution of similar features in different lineages.

Biogeography

The study of the geographic distribution of organisms.

Organism

An individual living thing.

Population

A group of individuals of the same species living in the same area and interbreeding.

Microevolution

Evolutionary change within a species or small group of organisms, especially over a short period.

Allele frequency

The relative frequency of an allele at a particular locus in a population, expressed as a fraction or percentage.

Genotype

The genetic constitution of an individual organism.

Phenotype

The set of observable characteristics of an individual resulting from the interaction of its genotype with the environment.

Genetic drift

A mechanism of evolution in which allele frequencies of a population change over generations due to chance (sampling error).

Fixed allele

An allele for which all members of the population under study are homozygous.

Founder effect

A type of genetic drift that occurs when a few individuals become isolated from a larger population and form a new population whose gene pool composition is not reflective of that of the original population.

Bottleneck event

A sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental events (such as floods, earthquakes, or droughts) or human activities (such as genocide).