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Evolution Flashcards

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Natural selection 12

Adaptation An inherited feature, shaped by natural selection, that helps an organism survive or reproduce.
Artificial selection Selection by people, who choose which plants or animals breed to get the traits they want.
Coevolution Two or more species that shape each other's evolution, as flowering plants and insects have.
Evolution The way a population's inherited traits change as generations pass.
Fitness How well an organism survives and leaves offspring, compared with others in its population.
Heredity The passing of traits from parents to their offspring through genes.
Hypothesis A proposed explanation for one thing observed, which can be tested with evidence.
Natural selection Individuals with helpful inherited traits survive and reproduce more, so the traits spread.
Population A group of organisms of one species that live in the same area and breed with one another.
Sexual selection Selection for traits that help an organism get a mate, even ones that make survival harder.
Theory A broad explanation of the natural world that has been tested again and again with evidence.
Variation The differences in genes and traits among the members of one population.

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Genes and change 12

Allele One of the versions of a gene, such as the yellow or the green allele for pea color.
Bottleneck A sharp drop in the size of a population, which can wipe out much of its genetic variation.
Founder effect A few individuals start a new population, which has less genetic variation than the old one.
Gene A stretch of DNA, passed from parent to offspring, that affects a trait.
Gene flow The movement of genes from one population to another, as when animals migrate or pollen blows.
Gene pool All of the genes, in all their versions, in one population.
Genetic drift Chance alone makes a gene version more common or rarer in a population over the generations.
Genotype The set of genes an organism carries.
Macroevolution Evolution above the level of the species, such as one lineage branching into many.
Microevolution A change in how common gene versions are within one population.
Mutation A change in a DNA sequence. Mutation is the first source of all new genetic variation.
Phenotype The traits of an organism that can be observed, shaped by its genes and its environment.

Evidence for evolution 12

Analogous structure A similar feature that two lineages evolved separately, not inherited from a shared ancestor.
Biogeography The study of where organisms live and how they came to live there.
Common ancestor An ancestor that two or more lineages share, as the wolf and the coyote share the first canine.
Fossil Any preserved remains or trace of a once-living thing, such as a bone, a shell or a footprint.
Homologous structure A body part that two species inherited from a common ancestor, whatever each uses it for now.
Molecular clock Using the roughly steady rate of change in some DNA to estimate when two lineages split.
Paleontology The science of past life, known mostly from fossils.
Radiometric dating Finding the age of a rock from the steady decay of radioactive atoms inside it.
Stratum One layer of sedimentary rock. The plural is strata.
Superposition In undisturbed rock layers the oldest lie at the bottom and the youngest on top.
Transitional form A fossil or organism with traits of both an ancestral group and the group descended from it.
Vestigial structure An inherited feature that has lost most or all of the function it had in an ancestor.

Species and family trees 12

Adaptive radiation One lineage quickly splits into many, each with its own adaptations, as Darwin's finches did.
Allopatric speciation Speciation that begins when a barrier such as a sea or a mountain range separates populations.
Clade A common ancestor together with all of its descendants: one whole branch of the tree of life.
Convergent evolution Separate lineages each evolve a similar feature on their own, often under similar pressures.
Divergence One ancestral lineage splits into two or more, and each builds up traits of its own.
Endemic Native to one restricted area and found nowhere else.
Extinction The end of a species or lineage, when its last members die.
Lineage A continuous line of descent from ancestor to descendant.
Mass extinction An event in which many different lineages go extinct at around the same time.
Phylogeny The evolutionary relationships among a group of organisms, often drawn as a branching tree.
Speciation The process by which one species splits into two or more separate species.
Species A group of organisms that can breed with one another in nature and have fertile offspring.

How this list was compiled: Own work: 48 terms from a unit on evolution, each with a gist of a few words and a one-sentence definition written for this page. On 2026-10-13 every definition was read against two references: the entry for the term in the glossary of Understanding Evolution, the site of the University of California Museum of Paleontology (https://evolution.berkeley.edu/glossary/), and the opening of the article on the term at https://en.wikipedia.org/ (for Variation, the article Genetic variation; for Artificial selection, Selective breeding; for Theory, Scientific theory; for Bottleneck, Population bottleneck; for Transitional form, Transitional fossil; for Homologous structure, Homology; for Analogous structure, Convergent evolution; for Vestigial structure, Vestigiality; for Superposition, Law of superposition; for Common ancestor, Common descent; for Divergence, Divergent evolution; for Mass extinction, Extinction event; for Phylogeny, Phylogenetic tree; for Endemic, Endemism). A term without an entry in both was left out. The pea color alleles and the wolf and the coyote come from the glossary; Darwin's finches as an adaptive radiation from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin%27s_finches. Licence: own work

How it works

Evolution flashcards for a life science or biology unit: 48 terms, each with a short gist and a one-sentence definition behind it. The page opens on the natural selection set, where Adaptation turns over to trait that helps.

Read the full guide

Four sets of 12 terms

Natural selection holds the ideas a unit starts with: variation, heredity, fitness, adaptation. Genes and change runs from gene and allele to genetic drift and the founder effect. Evidence for evolution has fossil, stratum and radiometric dating, with the homologous, analogous and vestigial structures. Species and family trees goes from speciation and extinction to clade and phylogeny.

One set, one sheet

Turn a card and the print button comes up under it. A set fills one sheet of Letter or A4 and all 48 take four. Printed on both sides and flipped on the long edge, trait that helps lands behind Adaptation.

Easy to swap: a bat's wing and a human arm are homologous, a bat's wing and an insect's wing analogous.
Fitness on these cards means leaving offspring, not being strong or fast.
Populations evolve over generations. A single organism does not.

Questions and answers

What is the difference between homologous and analogous structures?

Homologous structures were inherited from a common ancestor, even if they now do different jobs. Analogous structures do a similar job but evolved separately in each lineage, which is called convergent evolution.

What is the difference between microevolution and macroevolution?

Microevolution is a change in how common gene versions are within one population. Macroevolution is evolution above the species level, such as one lineage branching into many species. The second always involves the first, because species change only as their populations do.

What does theory mean in science?

A broad explanation for a wide range of observations that has been tested again and again with evidence. A hypothesis is narrower: a proposed, testable explanation for one set of observations.