Download Study Guide Changes Over Time * KEY

Study Guide Changes Over Time – KEY
S7L3. Students will recognize how biological traits are passed on to successive generations.
a. Explain the role of genes and chromosomes in the process of inheriting a specific
c. Recognize that selective breeding can produce plants or animals with desired traits.
S7L4. Students will examine the dependence of organisms on one another and their environments.
c. Recognize that changes in environmental conditions can affect the survival of both individuals and the entire species.
S7L5. Students will examine the evolution of living organisms through inherited characteristics that promote survival of organisms and
the survival of successive generations of their offspring.
a. Explain that physical characteristics of organisms have changed over successive generations (e.g. Darwin’s finches and
peppered moths of Manchester).
b. Describe ways in which species on earth have evolved due to natural selection.
c. Trace evidence that the fossil record found in sedimentary rock provides evidence for the long history of changing life forms.
1. What is a species?
A species is a group of similar organisms that can mate with each other and produce
fertile offspring.
2. Differences between members of the same species are known as
Variations
3. Fossils are
the preserved remains or traces of organisms that lived in the past
4. What is one of the main ways that a new species forms?
A group is separated from the rest of the species.
5. What did Charles Darwin infer from his time and observations of organisms in South
America and the Galapagos Islands?
A small number of different plant and animal species had come to the Galápagos Islands
from the mainland.
6. What is the role of genes in evolution?
Only traits that are controlled by genes can be acted on by natural selection.
7. Most fossils are formed by?
A dead organism becoming buried in sediment
8. Which term refers to similar structures that related species have inherited from a
common ancestor?
homologous structures
9. Scientists combine evidence from fossils, body structures, early development, DNA, and
protein structures to
determine the evolutionary relationships among species.
10. What did Darwin observe about finches in the Galápagos Islands?
Their beaks were adaptations related to the foods they ate
11. What process do scientists use to determine the actual age of fossils?
radioactive dating
12. When two organisms look very similar during their early stages of development, this is
evidence that the organisms …
Evolved from a common ancestor
13. When a species no longer has any living members it is called…
Extinct
14. A branching tree is…
a diagram showing how scientists think different groups of organisms are related
15.What is the name of the theory that proposes that evolution happens in tiny changes
over long periods of time…
Gradualism
16. Evolution is…
The gradual change in a species over time
Study Guide Changes Over Time – KEY
17.What is the name of the process by which individuals are better adapted to their
environment and more likely to survive and reproduce?
natural selection
18.How does natural selection lead to evolution?
Helpful variations accumulate among surviving members of the species.
19. How do remains become petrified fossils?
Minerals replace all or part of an organism.
20. A trait that helps an organism survive and reproduce is called a(an)?
Adaptation
21. ______________ occurs when a species creates more offspring than can possibly
survive.
Overproduction
22.Why do scientists think related species have similar body structures and development
patterns?
The species inherited many of the same genes from a common ancestor.
23. Darwin concluded that organisms on the Galápagos Islands…
had changed over time.