| A | B |
|---|
| fossil record | information about past life, including the structure of organisms, what they ate, what ate them, and in what environment they lived |
| artificial selection | selection by humans for breeding of useful traits from the natural variation among different organisms |
| evolution | change in a kind of organism over time; process by which modern organisms have descended from ancient organisms |
| relative dating | method of determining the age of a fossil by comparing its placement with that of fossils in other layers of rock |
| radioactive dating | technique in which scientists calculate the age of a sample based on the amount of remaining radioactive isotopes it contains |
| mutation | change in DNA sequence that affects genetic information |
| natural selection | process by which individuals that are better suited to their environment survive and reproduce most successfully; also called survival of the fittest |
| mass extinction | event in which many types of living things become extinct at the same time |
| cladogram | diagram that shows the evolutionary relationships among a group of organisms |
| Bacteria | domain of unicellular prokaryotes that have cell walls containing peptidoglycan |
| Archaea | domain of unicellular prokaryotes that have cell walls that do not contain peptidoglycan |
| Eukarya | domain of all organisms whose cells have nuclei, including protists, plants, fungi, and animals |
| Eubacteria | kingdom of unicellular prokaryotes whose cell walls are made up of peptidoglycan |
| Archaebacteria | kingdom of unicellular prokaryotes whose cell walls do not contain peptidoglycan |
| Protista | kingdom composed of Eukaryotes that are not classified as plants, animals, or fungi |
| Fungi | kingdom composed of heterotrophs; many obtain energy and nutrients from dead organic matter |
| Plantae | kingdom of multicellular photosynthetic autotrophs that have cell walls containing cellulose |
| Animalia | kingdom of multicellular eukaryotic heterotrophs whose cells do not have cell walls |
| kingdom | large taxonomic group consisting of closely related phyla |
| phylum | group of closely related classes |
| class | group of similar orders |
| order | group of similar families |
| family | group of genera that share many characteristics |
| genus | group of closely related species, and the first part of the scientific name in binomial nomenclature |
| species | group of similar organisms that can breed and produce fertile offspring |
| taxonomy | discipline of classifying organisms and assigning each organism a universally accepted name |
| heterotroph | organism that obtains energy from the foods it consumes; also called consumer |
| autotroph | organism that can capture energy from sunlight or chemicals and use it to produce its own food from inorganic compounds; also called a producer |
| theory | well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations |
| fitness | ability of an organism to survive an reproduce in its environment |
