Biology 1M03 - Midterm Exam Questions And Answers

Biology 1M03 - Midterm Exam Questions And Answers convergent evolution - ANS the process by which organisms are not closely related, but independently evolve similar traits that help them adapt to similar environments evolution - ANS the process by which living organisms have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth natural selection - ANS a process by which individuals with certain alleles produce the most surviving offspring in a population fitness - ANS the ability for an individual to produce offspring (highest fitness = more offspring) adaptation - ANS a characteristic that increases fitness of an individual in a specific environment cell theory - ANS proposes that all organisms are composed of cells, and all cells come from preexisting cells what are 3 factors that need to be present in order for natural selection to occur - ANS 1) variation in species 2) heritable traits 3) influenced fitness artificial selection - ANS the breeding of plants/animals to produce desirable traits (eg. designer babies) *note - artificial selection is dependent on genetic variation speciation - ANS formation of a new & distinct species in the course of evolution the tree of life - ANS diagram that depicts relationships among species *note - tree of life cannot be observed, it can only be inferred from data L.U.C.A - ANS last - universal - common - ancestor