Week 1 Vocab

• Biological Evolution/ Evolution: used to describe a heritable change in one or more characteristics of a population from one generation to the next
• Microevolution: involves changes in a single gene or in allele frequencies in a population over time
• Macroevolution: refers to the formation of a new species or groups of related species
• • Molecular Evolution: refers to the process of evolution at the level of genes and proteins
• Empirical thought: relies on observation to form an idea or hypothesis rather than trying to understand life from a non physical or spiritual point of view (knowledge gained from experience)
• • Species: a group of related organisms that share a distinctive form
  • Members of the same species are capable of interbreeding in nature to produce viable and fertile offspring
• Population: refers to all members of a species that live in the same area at the same time and have the opportunity to interbreed
• • Uniformitarianism: Suggested that changes in the Earth are directly caused by recurring events
• Heritable: Variation in traits may occur among individuals of a given species and passed from parent to offspring
• Natural Selection: Individuals with heritable traits that make then better suited to their native environment tend to flourish and reproduce where others are less likely to not
• Selective Breeding: refers to programs and procedures designed to modify traits in domesticated species
• Alleles: variant forms of a particular gene, that determine the trait
• Biogeography: the study of the geographic distribution of extinct and living species
• Endemic: Species of plants and animals that are only found in particular locations naturally
• Convergent Evolution: which two species from different lineages have independently evolved similar characteristics (convergent traits/ analogous structures)
• Homology: refers to a similarity that occurs due to descent from a common ancestor
• Homologous Structures: structures that are similar to each other because they are derived from a structure in a common ancestor
• Anatomical Homologies (relating to bodily structure)
• Vestigial Structures: anatomical features whose function is reduced or absent but that resemble structures of their presumed ancestors
• Developmental Homologies (related to embryo - early developmental stage)
• Molecular Homologies: Similarities between organisms at the molecular level due to descent from a common ancestor or an interrelated group of ancestors
• Homologous Genes: two or more genes derived from the same ancestral gene
• Orthologs: Homologous genes that are found in different species that evolved from a common ancestral gene by speciation
• Paralogs: Two or more homologous genes within a single species (of each other)
• • Gene Family: a set of paralogs within the genome of a single species
• • Vertical Evolution: new species arise from pre-existing species by the accumulation of genetic changes (gene mutations and gene duplications)
• • Horizontal Gene Transfer: a process in which an organism incorporates genetic material from another organism without being the offspring of that organism