Evolution Vocabulary WBHS Bio

How modern organisms changed through descent from common ancestors

• evolution

• artificial selection

• fitness

• genetic drift

Preserved remains or traces of ancient organisms

• fossils

• homologous structures

• vestigial structures

• analogous structures

Selective breeding where nature provides the inherited variations, and humans select the variants they find useful

• artificial selection

• natural selection

• evolution

• founder effect

Any heritable characteristic that increases an organism's ability to survive and reproduce in its environment

• fossil

• homologous structures

• adaptation

• analogous structures

How well an organism can survive and reproduce in its environment

• gene flow

• founder effect

• evolution

• fitness

Process by which organisms in nature with variations most suited to their environment survive and leave more offspring

• artificial selection

• natural selection

• bottleneck effect

• founder effect

Study of where organisms live now and where they and their ancestors lived in the past

• fossils

• fitness

• biogeography

• speciation

Similar structures that are shared by species and inherited from a common ancestor

• homologous structures

• adaptation

• vestigial structures

• analogous structures

Structures that are inherited from ancestors but have lost much of their original size and function

• analogous structures

• homologous structures

• vestigial structures

• adaptation

Body parts that serve similar functions but do not share a similar structure and/or development

• vestigial structures

• homologous structures

• adaptations

• analogous structures