Evolution History Vocabulary

A trait that makes it more likely that an individual will survive in a specific environment.

• Non adaptive trait

• Adaptive trait

• Body structure

• Fossil

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS4-4

A related organism from a previous generation.

• Descendant

• Common ancestor population

• Ancestor

• Descendant species

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS4-1

NGSS.MS-LS4-2

A part of an organism (for example, one or more bones).

• Body structure

• Fossil

• Limb

• Extinct

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS1-3

Everything (living and nonliving) that surrounds an organism

• Population

• Community

• Environment

• Evolution

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS2-1

NGSS.MS-LS2-3

NGSS.MS-LS2-4

The process by which species adapt to environmental changes over a very long time

• Natural selection

• Environment

• Generation

• Evolution

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS4-4

A graph that uses bars to show how characteristics or values are distributed within a group

• Pie chart

• Line graph

• Table

• Histogram

The process by which the distribution of traits in a population changes over many generations

• Natural selection

• Evolution

• Mutation

• Organism

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS4-4

The process by which one population evolves into two or more different species

• Descendant

• Common Ancestor Population

• Speciation

• Mutation

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS4-2

NGSS.MS-LS4-4

a scientist who studies fossils in order to understand the ancient history of life on Earth

• descendant species

• shared structure

• paleontologist

• speciation

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS4-1

Imagine a population of frogs that live in the forest. The frogs have a green coloring on top that helps them blend into the forest so they are not noticed by predators.

Imagine that half of this population stayed in the forest and the other half of the population moved to the hills above the forest, which are drier, with some brown grass and brown soil.

Which population of frogs is likely to have more changes after many generations?

• Descendant Species 1: The frogs in the brown hills.

• Descendant Species 2: The frogs in the green forest.

• Neither.

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS2-4

NGSS.MS-LS4-4