BIOS 230 Study Guide - Comprehensive Midterm Guide: Brassica Oleracea, Arrector Pili Muscle, Thomas Robert Malthus
Document Summary
Any change in the heritable traits within a population across generations. Allele frequency changes over relatively short time spans. Large evolutionary changes taking place over longer periods of time. What are the types of evidence that evolutionary biologists used to understand evolutionary processes. Evidence for evolution: fossils, homology, biogeography, direct observation, selective breeding, vestigial structures. Fossil: any trace of an organism that lived in the past. Fossils have allowed us to piece together the history of life on earth. Fossil skeleton of the huge iceage deer called the irish elk, an extinct species. Documenting the evolution of whales from ancestors witih legs. Archaeopteryx, an extinct species with modern feathers and a dinosaur- like skeleton. Evidence for evolution: fossils, homology, homologous structures, deveolpmental homologies, molecular homologies. Similarity resulting from inheritanace of traits from a common ancestor. Especially important evidence fro evolution when traits are modified fro different functions.
