BIOL 1175 Lecture Notes - Australopithecine, Brain Size, Depth Perception
Document Summary
Biological evolution: change in population or species and their alleles over time. Living things descended from a common ancestor and have common chemistry living things adapt to their environment. Natural selection operates on reproductive fitness and success. Next generation is a result of existing variability, new mutation, selection and genetic drift. Adaptation: characteristics that make an organism survive and reproduce in its environment. Variation - there is heritable variation for selection to act upon. Competition - researches ( food, mate and shelter ) therefore its limited, competition for survival and reproduction. Adaptation - environment remains unchanged, therefore traits starts to change. Fossils are mineralized remains of organism that lived in the past. Fossils form in stratosphere through sedimentation oldest at the bottom. Fossils allow us to trace the descent of a particular group. Transitional fossils have characteristics of two different groups. Prokaryotes are the first life forms seen in the fossil record followed by unicellular eukaryotes and then multicellular eukaryotes.
