Evolution STUDY GUIDE

Natural Selection

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

Fitness

Refers to how well an organism can survive and reproduce in its environment.

Artificial Selection

The human practice of breeding animals or plants for specific traits.

Evolution

The change in characteristics of living things over time.

Homologous Structure

Similar structures in different species that indicate a common ancestor.

Analogous Structure

Structures that serve similar functions in different species but do not share a common ancestor.

Comparative Anatomy

The study of similarities and differences in the anatomy of different species.

Comparative Embryology

The study of the similarities and differences in the embryos of different species.

Vestigial Structure

A structure in an organism that has lost all or most of its original function.

Biogeography

The study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time.

Adaptive Radiation

The process by which a single ancestral species evolves into multiple new species to fill different ecological niches.

Fossil Record

The history of life through the accumulation of fossils that provides evidence for evolution.

DNA Comparisons

Analyzing genetic sequences to understand evolutionary relationships among species.

Speciation