Chapter 14 Vocab 2
Terms
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- evolution
- generation-to-generation change in the proportion of different inherited genes in a population that account for all of the changes that have transformed life over an immense time
- adaptation
- inherited characteristic that improves an organism's ability to survive and reproduce in a particular environment
- descent with modification
- process by which descendants of ancestral organisms spread into various habitats and accumulate adaptations to diverse ways of life
- natural selection
- process by which individuals with inherited characteristics well-suited to the environment leave more offspring than do other individuals
- fossil
- preserved remains or marking left by an organism that lived in the past
- fossil record
- chronological collection of life's remains in sedimentary rock layers
- extinct
- no longer existing as a living species on Earth
- homologous structure
- similar structure found in more than one species that share a common ancestor
- vestigial structure
- remnant of a structure that may have had an important function in a species' ancestors, but has no clear function in the modern species
- population
- group of individuals of the same species living in a particular area at the same time
- variation
- difference among members of a species
- artificial selection
- selective breeding of domesticated plants and animals to produce offspring with desired genetic traits
- gene pool
- all of the alleles in all the individuals that make up a population
- microevolution
- evolution on the smallest scale—a generation-to-generation change in the frequencies of alleles within a population
- Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium
- condition that occurs when the frequency of alleles in a particular gene pool remain constant over time
- genetic drift
- change in the gene pool of a population due to chance
- gene flow
- exchange of genes between populations
- fitness
- contribution that an individual makes to the gene pool of the next generation compared to the contributions of other individuals
- antibiotic
- medicine that kills or slows the growth of bacteria