ARCH 131 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2 & 3: Mitosis, Guanine, Georges Cuvier
Document Summary
Biogeography = the distribution of animals and plants on earth. Adaptive radiation = the diversification of one founding species into multiple species. Natural selection = differential reproductive success over multiple generations. For natural selection to work three preconditions must be met: the trait in question must be inherited. For example, if you incubate the eggs of some animals, such as reptiles, at temperatures that are too high or too low, the resulting baby will have odd colour patters. These patterns are not genetic & so are not under the control of natural selection: the trait in question must show variation between individuals. Natural selection cannot distinguish good from bad traits if all individuals are genetically identical clones. This is rarely the case in nature, where variation abounds and is key difference between organisms that reproduce by asexual splitting, such as amoebas and higher animals that reproduce sexually.