All Flashcards
What are the basic steps of natural selection?
- Heritable Variation, 2. Differential Reproductive Success, 3. Adaptation.
Briefly describe how natural selection leads to adaptation.
Individuals with advantageous traits survive and reproduce more, making those traits more common in the population over time.
What is the definition of natural selection?
The process where environmental factors determine which traits become more common in a population due to differential reproductive success.
What is the definition of genotype?
An individual's genetic makeup, referring to the specific alleles they carry.
What is the definition of phenotype?
The physical expression of the genotype, representing the observable traits of an organism.
What is the definition of phenotypic plasticity?
The ability of an organism to change its phenotype in response to environmental changes, even with the same genotype.
What are alleles?
Different versions of a gene.
What is the effect of a changing environment on allele frequencies within a population?
It can lead to a shift in allele frequencies as natural selection favors different traits.
What is the effect of changes in daylight on the coat color of an arctic fox?
Changes in daylight regulate melatonin, which influences coat color, causing it to change from white in winter to brown/gray in summer.
What is the effect of differential reproductive success?
Traits that lead to higher survival and reproduction become more common in the population.