Evidence for Evolution

Folie 1

• 10.2 Evidence for Evolution

Vocabulary

• Adaptive Radiation - a process in which organisms diversify rapidly from an ancestral species into a multitude of new forms, particularly when a change in the environment makes new resources available, creates new challenges, or opens new environmental niches.
• Analogous structures - structures that are similar in unrelated organisms because it evolved to do the same job, not because it was inherited by a common ancestor
• Biogeography - study of how and why animals live the way they do
• Comparative Anatomy - the study of similarities and differences in the structures of different species
• Comparative Embryology - the study of the similarities and differences in the embryos of different species

Vocabulary Contd.

• Homologous Structures - structures that are the same in related organisms because it was inherited from a common ancestor
• Paleontologist - Scientists who finds and studies fossils to learn abut evolution to understand the past
• Vestigal Structures - structures such as the the human tailbone or appendix that evolution has reduced in size because it is no longer used

Notes

• * fossils provide clear evidence that evolution has occurred
• * DNA sequences are the strongest form of evidence proving that some animals have a common ancestor
• * Reverse evolution Machine

Recall

• 1. How does paleontologists learn about evolution?
• Paleontologists learn about evolution through the discovery and studying of fossils of ancestral organisms
• 2.. Describe what fossils reveal about the evolution of the horse.
• Fossils reveal that horses were once as small as foxes, that they had four toes instead of one hoof on each leg and that they may have evolved to protect themselves better from predators.
• 3. What are vestigal structures? Give an example.