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• Evolution


  The change in the characteristics of a species over several generations and relies on the process of natural selection
• The theory of evolution is based on the idea that all species are related and gradually change over time
• Charles Darwin


  English naturalist whose scientific theory of evolution by natural selection became the foundation of modern evolutionary studies
• Microevolution


  Changes in the gene pool of a population over time which result in relatively small changes to the organisms in the population--changes which would not result in the newer organisms being considered as different species
• Microevolutionary changes


  • Change in a species' coloring or size
• Macroevolution


  Changes in organisms which are significant enough that, over time, the newer organisms would be considered an entirely new species
• Newer organisms would be unable to mate with their ancestors, assuming we were able to bring them together
• Anaximander


  Proposed that animals could be transformed from one kind to another
• Empedocles


  Speculated that living things could be made up of various combinations of pre-existing parts
• George Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon


  Said that living things do change through time, and speculated this was due to influences from the environment or chance
• Buffon believed the earth must be much older than 6000 years, speculating it must be at least 75,000 years old
• Buffon suggested that humans and apes are related

  
• Erasmus Darwin


  Offered some evolutionary speculations in his book Zoonomia, but they had no real influence on subsequent theories
• Carolus Linnaeus


  Showed an inclination towards the ability of species to mutate, as a result of his observations of variations among species
• Jean-Baptiste Lamarck


  Presented a clearly stated evolutionary theory, later known as 'The Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics', which was ridiculed at the time and thoroughly disproved in the 20th Century
• Charles Darwin


  Founder of the modern theory of evolution
• it sold out in one day In 1859 the first edition of Darwin's "On The Origin of The Species" was published
• Alfred Wallace had also hit upon the idea of natural selection independently, but did not think that natural selection was sufficient to account for the origin of man, and believed divine intervention had been required
• Herbert Spencer


  A philosopher who was an influence in evolutionary theory during the latter part of the 19th and early 20th Centuries, who popularized the phrase "survival of the fittest"
• Spencer's ideas damaged proper understandings of natural selection and Darwin often attacked him for his "fundamental generalizations"
• Natural selection


  A mechanism of evolution where organisms that are more adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and pass on the genes that aided their success
• Populations evolve, but individual organisms do not
• Population


  An interbreeding group of individuals of one species in a given geographic area at the same time
• As changes in the gene pool occur, a population evolves
• Natural selection is one of the ways to account for the millions of species that have lived on Earth
• How natural selection works

  1. Genetic mutations that are beneficial to an individual's survival are passed on through reproduction

  2. This results in a new generation of organisms that are more likely to survive to reproduce
• Adaptation


  A physical or behavioural characteristic that helps an organism to survive in its environment
• Not all characteristics of an animal are adaptations
• Exaptation


  When an adaptation for one purpose is co-opted for another, like feathers being an adaptation for thermoregulation before being used for flight
• 'Survival of the fittest'


  A phrase that originated from Darwinian evolutionary theory as a way of describing the mechanism of natural selection, where 'fitness' is defined as reproductive success
• Darwin's finches


  Finches collected by Darwin from the Galapagos Islands, which have a diverse array of beak sizes and shapes corresponding to their differing primary food sources and divergence due to isolation on different islands
• Lamarckism

  A theory proposed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck that animals acquire characteristics based on use or disuse during their lives, rather than through hard-coded genetic changes