Biology and Evolution Lecture Notes

Vocabulary flashcards based on lecture notes covering definitions, causations, modes of selection, and evolutionary historical milestones.

Biology

The scientific study of life.

Proximate Causation

Answers the "How?" questions and explains how a mechanism works.

Ultimate Causation

Answers the "Why?" questions and explains why a mechanism exists and what function it serves.

Natural Selection

A form of selection where traits that are adaptive tend to increase reproductive success, though their effectiveness changes as the environment changes.

Artificial Selection

Human-generated selection, such as domestication, which has been around for 10,000 years.

Sexual Selection

A type of selection related to choosing who to mate with, where sex overtakes mutation across generations.

Cambrian Explosion

An event occurring about 500 million years ago when life rapidly expanded because of oxygen.

Tetrapods

Four-legged organisms that started coming out of the water 375 million years ago to populate the land.

Amphibian

An organism that lives on land but needs to be around water.

Reptiles

Organisms that carry water with them and emerged around 250 to 300 million years ago.

Mammals

Warm-blooded organisms that emerged after asteroids wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, characterized by parental care and feeding their young.

Primates

Mammals that live in trees, emerging around 45 million years ago before mammals came down the trees to walk on land 5 million years ago.

Anthropocene

The human era, which began 10,000 years ago.

Evolution

The change over generational time involving the passing of genes from parents to offspring.