The identification by humans of desirable traits in plants and animals, and the steps taken to enhance and perpetuate those traits in future generations

Organisms better suited to their environment will survive long enough to reproduce, passing on the genes.

Newly evolved traits such as feathers, that do not appear in fossils of common ancestors.

Primitive features such as teeth and tails that do appear in ancestral forms.

Anatomically similar structures inherited from a common ancestor

Structures that are the reduced forms of functional structures in other organisms

Similar structures in organisms that don't have shared ancestry, and that evolved independently to serve the same purpose

The distribution of plants and animals across the world

A measure of the relative contribution that an individual trait makes to the next generation

Morphological adaptations that allow animals to blend in

One species evolves to resemble another species

When allelic frequencies remain constant a population is in genetic equilibrium

Any change in allelic frequencies in a population that results from chance

Occurs when a small sample of a population settles in a location separated from the rest of the population

Occurs when a population declines to a very low number and then rebounds

Operates to eliminate extreme expressions of a trait.

Increases the expression of the extreme versions of a trait in a population

A process that splits a population into two groups

Operates before fertilization

Operates after fertilization has occurred to ensure that the resulting hybrid remains infertile

a physical barrier divides one population into two or more population

A species evolves into a new species without a physical barrier

Evolution that occurs in a relatively short time when one species gives rise to many species in response to the creation of a new habitat or another ecological opportunity.

The theory that evolution proceeds in small, gradual steps

Theory that attempts to explain abrupt transitions in the fossil records

Founder of Natural Selection