Chapter 2: Evolution – Flashcards
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Charles Darwin was the founder of which field?
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Evolutionary Biology
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Who developed a theory of evolution by means of natural selection?
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Alfred Russel Wallace
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Why didn't Darwin use Mendel's results when formulating his theory of evolution by natural selection?
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Mendel's work was not well known until many years after Darwin published his theory of evolution
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Who developed catastrophism?
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Georges Cuvier
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Who developed uniformitarianism?
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James Hutton
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Who developed inheritance of acquired characteristics?
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Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
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What drove Darwin to publish almost 2 decades late?
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He feared someone would publish the same ideas first
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What disciplines did Darwin draw information from to found the field of evolutionary biology?
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-geology -paleontology -taxonomy (& systematics) -demography -biology
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Darwin's book title?
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On the Origin of Species
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The different variations of a single gene are:
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Alleles
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True or False: Alfred Russel Wallace contacted Darwin with a full report outlining a theory of evolution by means of natural selection before it was published
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True
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True or False: Some argue Alfred Russel Wallace should receive partial credit for founding the theory of evolution
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True
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True or False: Darwin proposed that the frequency of advantageous characteristics increases over time
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True
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What are the 4 causes of evolution?
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1) Natural Selection 2) Genetic Drift 3) Gene Flow 4) Mutation
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What does Darwin think the primary cause of evolution was?
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Natural Selection
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In Darwin's day, people thought that characteristics are an average of their parents, called...
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Blending Inheritance
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During which century did Darwin come up with his theory?
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19th Century
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What is true of modern genetics?
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The mother and father contribute equally to the genetic makeup of a child
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While home for winter break, you start telling your grandma about your physical anthropology class. She once heard about a man who became a bodybuilder and then produced muscular children, and she asks you to explain how this could happen. You say that:
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This is an example of Lamarckism, which has some kernels of truth about evolution but is not a wholly accurate theory
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Your history professor is interested in genealogy and tells your class that, on his mother's side, he is descended from the original Amish population. He also notes that many of his extended family members have the condition polydactyly, an extra finger or toe. The high frequency of polydactyly in your professor's ancestry is an example of:
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Genetic Drift
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Your cousin insists that he ran into your doppelganger the spitting image of you at the mall. You counter this assertion with your knowledge of physical anthropology replying that:
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Both Malthus and Darwin observed that variation exists within a species and no 2 members are exactly alike
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True or False: Darwin's ideas about evolution and Mendel's research in genetics are combined into what we now call the idea of blending inheritance
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False
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Darwin did not know about genes but believe that traits passed from parents to offspring by particles called:
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Gemmules
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True or False: Swine flu is the result of viral evolution
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True
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The "peppered" moths range from light to dark colored. During the Industrial Revolution where smoke and soot covered trees, the population became predominately dark to blend into their surroundings. This is an example of which force of evolution?
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Natural Selection
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According to Linnaean taxonomy, humans are in the genus and species:
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Homo Sapiens
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This naturalist spent 5 years on the HMS Beagle:
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Charles Darwin
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A photo shows two variants in _____, or physical appearance of 7 characteristics of the pea plant:
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Phenotype
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True or False: Darwin's ideas helped stimulate research in the fields of biology, genetics, comparative anatomy, and physical anthropology
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True
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According to Linnaean taxonomy, the most specific category and level shared by humans, gorillas, and howler monkeys is:
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Suborder Anthropoidea
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The only source of new genetic material is:
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Mutation
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The specific shape of DNA is known as the:
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Double Helix
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The scientist whose work provided the foundation for later understandings of genetics was:
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Gregor Mendel
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Darwinian evolution proposed that:
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Species adapt and change over time based on the environment
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Zoonosis is:
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The transfer of pathogens from other animals to humans
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What are 3 observations of natural selection?
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Organisms produce more offspring than survive, populations vary, and traits are inherited
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The forces of evolution include:
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-Natural Selection -Gene Flow -Genetic Drift -Mutations
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How do modern-day lemurs of Madagascar demonstrate the concept of adaptive radiation?
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They are closely related species that have branched from one species
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Uniformitarianism is the theory that:
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The natural processes operating today are the same as the natural processes that operated in the past
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Adaptive radiation occurs when:
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One species produces multiple closely related species
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The individual genotypes in a breeding population, taken as a whole are the:
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Gene Pool
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Darwin observed that adaptations:
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Were physical traits that enhanced survival and reproduction
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In terms of natural selection, what is evolving?
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Populations
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True or False: Adaptations are physical traits or behaviors that give an organism a longer lifespan and allow it to have more offspring than those without those traits
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True
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True or False: Sometimes one species can branch out into the many different ones by using different adaptations
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True
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True or False: Natural selection is the process by which adaptations increase in frequency in a population
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True
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How old is the Earth?
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4.6 billion years old
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How did Robert Hooke test the idea that fossils were the remains of ancient life?
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He studied the microscopic structure of wood
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What was important in Thomas Malthus' essay On the Principle of Population?
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It made the case that populations are limited by their food supply
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What are responsible for the transmission of traits?
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Genes
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Alleles are either:
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Dominant or Recessive
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Natural Selection acts on:
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Only already existing genes
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Who published their theory of the structure of DNA in 1953?
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James Watson and Francis Crick
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In a simplified example of eye color inheritance, B stands for brown eyes, blue eyes are b. A child who inherits one of each will have what genotype and which color eyes?
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Bb, brown
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True or False: Comparing the skeletons of 2 extinct primates, can provide physical anthropologists information about the human past
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True
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The study of taxonomy was enriched by the work of:
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Carolus Linnaeus
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Uniformitarianism was proposed by which 2 scientists:
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Hutton and Lyell
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True or False: Scientists have demonstrated that similar species can tell us about their evolutionary history
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True
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True or False: Scientists have shown that life has and is currently evolving
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True
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True or False: Scientists have noticed that the numbers of adults in a population tends to remain constant
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True
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True or False: Scientists have demonstrated that fossils are the remains of once-living organisms and can be used to reconstruct the history of life on earth
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True
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True or False: Scientists have demonstrated that the earth is very old and has changed significantly over time
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True
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Adaptations
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Changes in physical structure, function, or behavior that allow an organism or species to survive and reproduce in a given environment
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Adaptive Radiation
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One species branches multiple closely related species
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Allele
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One of more alternative forms of a gene
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Catastrophism
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Doctrine asserting that cataclysmic events (volcanoes, earthquakes, floods) rather than evolutionary processes, are responsible for geologic changes
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Chromosomes
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The strand of DNA found in the nucleus of Eukaryotas that contains hundreds or thousands of genes
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DNA
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A double stranded molecule that provides the genetic code for an organism, consisting of phosphate, deoxyribose sugar, and 4 types of nitrogen bases
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Dominant
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Refers to an allele that is expressed in an organism's phenotype and that simultaneously masks the effects of another allele, if another one is present
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Evolutionary Synthesis
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An unified theory of evolution that combines genetics with natural selection
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Fossils
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Physical remains of part or all of once-living organisms, mostly bones and teeth, that have become mineralized by the replacement of organic with inorganic materials
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Gene
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The basic unit of inheritance, a sequence of DNA on a chromosome, coded to produce a specific protein
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Gene Flow
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Admixture, or the exchange of alleles between 2 populations
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Genetic Drift
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The random change in allele frequency from one generation to the next, with greater effect in small populations
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Genotype
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The genetic makeup of an organism, the combination of alleles for a given gene
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Lamarckism
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The theory of evolution through the inheritance of acquired characteristics in which an organism can pass on features acquired during its lifetime
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Mendelian inheritance
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The basic principles associated with the transmission of genetic material, forming the basis of genetics, including the law of segregation and the law of independent assortment
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Mutation
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Spontaneous change in an existing gene
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Natural Selection
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Process by which some organisms, with features that enable them to adapt to the environment, preferentially survive and reproduce, thereby increasing the frequency of those features in the poulation
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Phenotype
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The physical expression of the genotype, it may be influenced by the environment
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Population Genetics
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A specialty within the field of genetics, focuses on the changes in gene frequencies and the effects of those changes on adaptation and evolution
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Recessive
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An allele that is expressed in an organism's phenotype if 2 copies are present but is masked if the dominant allele is present
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Species
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A group of related organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile, viable offspring
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Taxonomy
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The classification of past and living life forms
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Uniformitarianism
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The theory that processes that occurred in the geologic past are still at work today
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One of the theories put forth to explain the evolution of modern humans is that homo sapiens arose more or less simultaneously in a variety or major geographical locales in the Old World through interbreeding of populations. A criticism of this theory based on the forces of evolution is that:
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There would have been insufficient gene flow among the relatively few Homo Sapiens in the world to maintain a single gene pool
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Darwin studied species of _____ in the _____ Islands when coming up with his ideas about evolution
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finches, Galapagos
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Which were added to evolutionary theory after Darwin?
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-DNA is how many of our traits are passed from parents to offspring -Though he wrote at the same time as Darwin, Mendel's principles of inheritance is that informs us of how genetic traits are passed from parents to their offspring -Natural selection is only one of the other forces of evolution, which include mutation, gene flow, and genetic drift -Inheritance, at the fundamental level of the gene, is particulate, not blending
