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General Biology: Principles of Evolution

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Termini in questo insieme (23)

  • What is the unifying principle of modern biology?
    Evolutionary theory explains the diversity of life and ancestral traits through descent with modification.
  • What do vestigial structures demonstrate?
    They show that ancestral traits persist even after losing primary utility, indicating evolutionary history.
  • Who proposed the idea of ideal forms and a linear hierarchy of organisms?
    Plato proposed ideal forms; Aristotle arranged organisms in a linear hierarchy called the Great Chain of Being.
  • What discovery provided physical evidence that life changed over time?
    The discovery of fossils, preserved remains of organisms, showed life’s progression.
  • What is Catastrophism?
    Theory that successive natural disasters caused species extinctions and fossil layers, proposed to explain fossil record without evolution.
  • What principle suggests Earth is shaped by slow, ongoing processes over vast time?
    Uniformitarianism, developed by geologists like James Hutton, states Earth’s features result from gradual processes.
  • What was Lamarck's theory of evolution?
    Inheritance of acquired characteristics: traits changed by use or disuse are passed to offspring (later refuted).
  • Who developed the theory of evolution by natural selection?
    Charles Darwin developed the theory; Alfred Russel Wallace independently conceived and supported it.
  • What is the focus shift in biology introduced by Darwin and Wallace?
    From individuals to populations, recognizing populations evolve over time through natural selection.
  • State Darwin and Wallace’s first postulate of natural selection.
    Individuals in a population vary due to random mutations.
  • State Darwin and Wallace’s second postulate of natural selection.
    Traits are heritable and passed from parent to offspring.
  • State Darwin and Wallace’s third postulate of natural selection.
    More individuals are born than can survive and reproduce.
  • State Darwin and Wallace’s fourth postulate of natural selection.
    Survival and reproduction depend on specific heritable traits, not chance.
  • Why is blended inheritance incompatible with natural selection?
    Blended inheritance would eliminate extreme traits and variation, halting evolution by removing natural selection’s raw material.
  • How does Mendelian genetics support evolution?
    Alleles remain discrete, allowing extreme phenotypes to reappear and maintain variation for natural selection.
  • What are homologous structures?
    Anatomical features with different functions but shared evolutionary origin, e.g., human arm and chicken wing bones.
  • What are vestigial structures?
    Inherited structures with no current function, like wisdom teeth or flightless ostrich wings, indicating evolutionary history.
  • What are analogous structures?
    Structures similar in function but different in origin, resulting from convergent evolution, e.g., insect and bird wings.
  • What does embryology reveal about evolution?
    Early vertebrate embryos share features like tails and gill slits, indicating common ancestry.
  • How does molecular biology support evolution?
    All organisms use DNA, RNA, ribosomes, 20 amino acids, and ATP, showing relatedness and allowing molecular clocks.
  • What evolutionary change occurred in the Silent Crickets of Kauai?
    A mutation silenced male cricket calls, avoiding parasitic flies and increasing survival and reproduction.
  • How does herbicide resistance illustrate natural selection?
    Random mutations confer resistance; herbicide kills susceptible individuals, leaving resistant ones to reproduce.
  • What is artificial selection?
    Human-directed breeding selecting for desired traits, demonstrating how selection changes populations.