Bio280 Exam 1 (Chapters 1-4) Quizzes

Great Chain of Being - species were arranged on a scale from lower to higher forms Linnean classification - A classification system that breaks down animals into seven levels, each level being a taxon taxa - nested hierarchy of groups taxonomy - the science of describing, naming, and classifying species of living or fossil organisms Nicolas Steno - discovered that animal and plant remains were preserved and transformed into stone in 1666 natural theology - emerged from the 17th century as a response to the rise of physics and engineering, anatomy provided evidence of divine design 70,000 - Comte de Buffon hypothesized that the Earth was _________ years old based on laws of atoms and particles that explained that species were formed from organic particles after a comet strike paleontology - the study of fossils that emerged after Steno's realization of fossils being the remains of living things extinction - permanent loss of a species (contradicts the great chain of being) volcanoes and deposits of sediment - how did species become extinct? William Smith - found that layers of rocks miles apart contain distinctive groups of fossils and that the rocks of that certain time/layer preserved species' remains Lamarck's theory of evolution - theory that life is driven from simplicity to complexity and that animals and plants could adapt to their environment common descent - principle that all living things were derived from common ancestors homology - similarity of characteristics resulting from a shared ancestry homologous characteristics - characteristics that display homology descent with modification - passing of traits from parent to offspring (could account for gradual change in species' traits and homology) natural selection - mechanism that can lead to adaptive evolution, differences in phenotype of individuals cause some of them to survive and reproduce better than others Malthus's principle of population - Dilemma: population grows more rapidly than means of subsistence Population growth: population, if unchecked, follows geometric progression Food supply: means of subsistence follows arithmetic progressions or is finite or limited