1. Quarter 4: Unit 2: Evolution
14-1

2. 1.) Biogenesis – the theory that living organisms come only from other living organisms. 2.) Spontaneous Generation – an early and now disproved hypothesis that living organisms develop from nonliving material.

3. 14-2

4. 1.) Radioactive Dating – a method of determining the age of an object by measuring the amount of a specific radioactive isotope it contains. 2.) Radioactive Decay – the release of particles or radiant energy by the unstable nuclei of some isotopes 3.) Half-life – the period of time in which half of a radioactive substance decays

5. 14-3

6. 1. ) Ribozyme – a type of RNA that is able to act as an enzyme. 2
1.) Ribozyme – a type of RNA that is able to act as an enzyme. 2.) Chemosynthesis – the production of carbohydrates through the use of energy from inorganic molecules instead of light. 3.) Cyanobacteria – photosynthetic unicellular prokaryotes

7. 4.) Endosymbiosis – a mutually beneficial relationship between one organism and another that lives within it; in relation to evolution the chloroplasts and mitochondria evolved from endosymbiotic bacteria.

8. 15-1

9. 1. ) Fossil – the remains or traces of a once living organism 2
1.) Fossil – the remains or traces of a once living organism 2.) Law of Superposition – a law that states that successive layers of rock or soil were deposited on top of one another and the lowest level is the oldest. 3.) Stratum – in geology, a layer of soil or rock in a cross section of the Earth.

10. 4.) Relative Age – determined by comparing two fossils and deciding which is younger than the other. 5.) Absolute Age – age in years, could be estimated from radiological evidence. 6.) Mass Extinctions – one of the brief periods of time during which large numbers of species disappeared.

11. 7.) Biogeography – study of the geographical distribution of fossils and living organisms.

12. 15-2

13. 1. ) Acquired Trait – a trait that is not determined by genes 2
1.) Acquired Trait – a trait that is not determined by genes 2.) Natural Selection – the process by which organisms with favorable variations reproduce at higher rates than those without such variations. 3.) Uniformitarianism – a principal that states that the geological structure of Earth resulted from cycles of observable processes and that these processes operate continuously.

14. 4.) Adapt – in populations, to change genetically over generations to become more suited to the environment. 5.) Fitness – a single organism’s genetic contribution to the next generation 6.) Adaptive Advantage – a favorable trait that gives the organism an advantage

15. 15-3

16. 1.) Homologous – similar features that originated in a shared ancestor. 2.) Analogous Structure – in evolution, structures in more than one organism that have similar appearance and function, but different embryological origin. 3.) Vestigial – features that were useful by an ancestor, but they are not useful to the modern organism that has them.

17. 4.) Conserved – genes that may have remain unchanged through the evolution process. 5.) Coevolution – the change of two or more species in close association with each other. 6.) Convergent Evolution – occurs when the environment selects similar phenotypes, even though the ancestral types were quite different origins.

18. 7.) Divergent Evolution – two ore more related populations or species become more and more dissimilar. 8.) Artificial Selection – breeding of organisms by humans for specific phenotypic characteristics.