Bio Evolution Test

Scientific Inquiry

An ongoing process that involves making observations, asking questions, forming hypotheses, making predictions, conducting investigations, making conclusions, and supporting or rejecting/revising hypotheses.

Scientific Hypotheses

Tentative answers to testable questions based on observations.

Prediction

The "if…then" statements made from observations about what you expect to occur during an investigation.

Theory

An extensively tested hypothesis that encompasses a large body of information and that cannot be rejected after rigorous testing.

Science

An ongoing process for answering questions using scientific inquiry.

Well-controlled experiment

An experiment that has control groups, experimental groups, and replication.

Gene Pool

The total of all genes in a population.

Population

A group of reproductively isolated organisms of the same species that live in the same place at the same time.

Carrying Capacity

The maximum population size that a particular environment can support.

Abiotic and biotic factors

Factors that limit the growth of a population.

Adaptation

A characteristic that helps organisms survive and reproduce in their specific environment; they can be structural, physiological, or behavioural.

Fossil

The preserved remains of a once-living organism.

Extinction

A species that is no longer alive on earth.

Diversity

Variation within a population.

Extinct

The status of a species that has completely disappeared from Earth.

Mimicry

A structural adaptation in which a harmless species resembles a harmful species in colouration or structure, helping to deter predators.

Variation

Differences between the inherited traits of individuals in a population, which may be structural, functional, or physiological.

Physiological Adjustment

An organism's ability to adapt during its lifetime to changing environmental conditions.

Mutation

A permanent change in the genetic material of an organism; the only source of new genetic variation.

Mutagen

Factors, such as UV radiation and chemicals, that can cause mutations.

Mutation

A change in the DNA sequence that can cause a cell to exhibit characteristics or die.

Somatic Cell Mutation

A mutation in a somatic cell DNA will die with the individual organism.

Gamete Cell Mutation

A mutation in a gamete cell DNA can cause the mutation to be passed on by an allele to the next generation.

Selective Advantage

A genetic advantage that improves an organism's chance of survival, usually in a changing environment.

Natural Selection

The situational process by which characteristics of a population change over many generations as organisms with heritable traits survive and reproduce.

Selective Pressure

Environmental conditions that select for certain characteristics of individuals and select against other characteristics.

Fitness

How well suited an organism is to survive its habitat, and the relative contribution an individual makes to the next generation.

Stabilizing Selection

Extreme variations are selected against and the intermediate range phenotypes are retained in greater numbers.

Directional Selection

The adaptive phenotype is shifted in one direction and one extreme phenotype is favoured over another.

Disruptive Selection

Two phenotypic extremes are favoured, and intermediate forms are decreased.

Artificial Selection

Selective pressure exerted by humans on populations in order to improve or modify particular desirable traits.

Biotechnology

The use of technology and organisms to produce useful products.

Monoculture

Extensive plantings of the same varieties of a species over large expanses of land.

Gene Banks

Preserve the seeds of early ancestors of modern plants to introduce genetic diversity if a modern plant nears extinction.

Population Change

Populations change, not individuals; individuals can acclimatize, but not adapt.

Environmental Change

When selective pressures change, the traits that are favourable change.

Positive Traits

Traits that are better adapted to the environment.

Negative Traits

Traits that are less suited to the environment.

Neutral Traits

Traits that do not affect the organism's fitness.

High Fitness Organism

An organism that has many reproductively viable offspring compared to the normal amount for a species.

Harmful Mutations

Mutations that reduce fitness.

Neutral Mutations

Mutations that do not affect fitness.

Beneficial Mutations

Mutations that increase fitness.

Evolution

The theory of evolution explains how biological diversity occurs, and how adaptations occur through natural selection.

Biological Success

When an organism lives long enough to reproduce and pass its genes on to its offspring.

Embryology

The study of embryos.

Deuterostomes

Embryos in which the anus is formed before the mouth.

Vestigial Structure

Structures that are typically reduced and nonfunctional that were inherited from ancestors.

Homologous Structures

Structures that are similar in fundamental layout and construction, although they may serve very different purposes.

Analogous Structures

Structures that have similar function, but were inherited or evolved independently from each other.

Fossil Record

Fossils are found within layers of sedimentary rock, indicating that organisms have changed throughout time and descended from a common ancestor.

Biogeography

The study of the past and present geographical distribution of species.

DNA and Modern Evidence

Relationships between organisms can be determined by similarities in DNA.

Carolus Linnaeus

Named species by perceived relationships based on structures, indicating a common ancestor and creating an evolutionary framework.

Foraminifera

Small oceanic protozoans that leave a continuous fossil record in ocean sediments, which can trace their gradual evolution.

Amniotic Eggs

Have the same fluid as sea water; reptilian and bird eggs are waterproof, but amphibian eggs are not.

Extra-embryonic Membranes

Allow the fetus to connect with the mother's uterus.

Pelvises of Modern Whales

Indicate that they evolved from species with hind limbs.

Pentadactyl Limbs

Evolved into the current limbs of air-breathing vertebrates.

Sugar Gliders and Flying Squirrels

Have similar features due to similar selective pressures, but different gene pools.

Closer Areas and Species Distribution

Closer areas are more populated by closely related species than areas that are geographically separated.

DNA Patterns

Similar DNA patterns indicate inheritance from a common ancestor.

Phylogenetic Trees

Described evolutionary relationships by anatomy before DNA analysis.

Increased Resistance of Mosquitoes

Caused an increase in malaria in humans.

Morphologically Different Birds

The bird family Cotinga has many different species that varied greatly, but DNA evidence showed how they were related.

Thomas Malthus Principle of Population

Every species has more offspring that can be expected to survive, because external factors will lower populations.

Buffon and Lyell Uniformitarianism

The theory that changes in the earth's crust during geological history have resulted from the action of continuous and uniform processes.

Geological processes

In operation now operated similarly in the past and it requires vast amounts of time to explain the present state of the earth.

Jean Baptiste Lamarck

The first comprehensive theory of the mechanism of evolution, proposing that interactions of organisms and the environment drove the process of evolution.

Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics

Lamarck's belief that characteristics acquired during an individual's lifetime could be passed on to one's offspring.

Charles Darwin

He published 'On the origin of species by means of natural selection' after his voyage on the Beagle, stating that all species evolved from earlier species.

Natural selection

The process that allows organisms that are best acclimatized to their environment to survive and reproduce, resulting in those that are less fit to die out.

Alfred Russel Wallace

A naturalist and explorer that developed essentially the same theory as Darwin.

Microevolution

Factors that affect populations, resulting in changes to gene frequencies in a population due to reproductive isolation.

Non-random selection

Some individuals have greater reproductive success because they possess alleles that make them more fit for their environment.

Sexual Selection

The mating among individuals based on selecting for specific phenotypes, behavioral or physical, or the resources the mate can provide.

Mutation

Random and non-adaptive changes that are the only source of additional genetic variation and new alleles or genes.

Gene Flow

The movement of alleles from one population to another population, which changes the allele frequency of both populations.

Genetic Drift

The random change in genetic variation based on chance, which does not take into account the benefits or harms of an allele.

Bottleneck Effect

The rapid reduction of alleles in a population resulting from an environmental or human caused change.

Founder Effect

When several individuals separate from a large population and establish a new one, potentially leading to adaptive radiation and speciation.

Divergent Evolution

Evolution towards different traits in closely related species.

Convergent Evolution

Describes evolution toward similar traits in unrelated species.

Coevolution

Two or more species can evolve together, where evolutionary paths become connected, and species evolve in response to changes in each other.

Batesian Mimicry

A harmless species evolves to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species, directed towards a common predator.

Mullerian Mimicry

Two or more unrelated distasteful/harmful species evolve to mimic each other.

Mimicry

Two or more unrelated distasteful/harmful species evolve to mimic each other's warning signals to ward off a common predator.

Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium

States that allele frequencies in a population will remain constant in the absence of evolutionary influences.

Hardy-Weinberg Equation

To calculate allele and genotype frequencies in populations, use the equation: (p + q)2 = p2 + 2pq + q2 = 1.

p

Frequency of allele A (dominant).

q

Frequency of allele a (recessive).

p2

Frequency of AA (homozygous dominant).

2pq

Frequency of Aa (heterozygous).

q2

Frequency of aa (homozygous recessive).

Evolution Detection

By comparing genotype frequencies from one generation to the next one, one can learn whether or not evolution is occurring, in what direction, as well as the rate of evolution for the selected trait.

Speciation

The formation of a new species from existing species that occurs when members of a population change so much that they can no longer produce viable offspring with members of the original population.

Macroevolution

Major changes above the species level that leads to the formation of new species due to reproductive isolation.

Reproductive Isolation

When the gene pool of a certain population becomes isolated or protected by geographical, behavioural, physiological, or genetic differences, and can no longer successfully breed.

Allopatric Speciation

An extrinsic mechanism that occurs due to geographic isolation that prevents mating between members of the same species.

Sympatric Speciation

An intrinsic mechanism where a new species evolves from an ancestral species in the same geographic area as a result of reproductive isolation.