Bio 280 Exam 1 Questions And Answers With Verified Tests

adaptions - inherited aspects of an individual that allow it to outcompete other members of a population that lack the trait (or that have a slightly different version of the trait). Adaptions are traits that have evolved through the mechanism of natural selection analogous traits - similar because they have converged on shared form. they are not derived from common ancestor apamorphy - • a form of a derived state Australopithecines - members of the hominin genus Australopithecus biological evolution - any change in inherited traits of a population that occurs from one generation to the next (ie. over a time period longer than the lifetime of an individual in the population) biomarker - molecular evidence of life in the fossil record. biomarkers can include fragments of DNA, molecules such as lipids, or isotopic ratios branches - lineages evolving through time between successive speciation events burgess shale - lagerstatten in canada that preserved fossils from the cambrian period characters - heritable aspects of organisms that can be compared across taxa