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8th Grade Science
Natural Selection Vocabulary
Definition | Term |
---|---|
a trait that makes it more likely that an individual will survive in a specific environment | adaptive trait |
a related organism from a previous generation | ancestor |
a way of hiding by looking the same as the background | camouflage |
an event or process that leads to a result or change | cause |
a long piece of DNA that contains many genes | chromosome |
the number of individuals with each trait in a population | distribution |
a type of molecule that genes and chromosomes are made of | DNA |
a result or change that happens because of an event or process | effect |
everything (living and nonliving) that surrounds an organism | environment |
a characteristic that all members of a species have | feature |
an instruction for making a protein molecule | gene |
a specific form of a gene that provides instructions for making a particular protein molecule | gene version |
a group of individuals born and living at about the same time | generation |
a graph that uses bars to show how characteristics or values are distributed within a group | histogram |
to receive genes from a parent | inherit |
a random change to a gene that sometimes results in a new trait | mutation |
the process by which the distribution of traits in a population changes over many generations | natural selection |
a trait that makes it less likely that an individual will survive in a specific environment | non-adaptive trait |
a young insect that looks somewhat different from the adult | nymph |
an organism produced as a result of reproduction | offspring |
living things, such as plants, animals, and bacteria | organisms |
a group of the same type of organism living in the same area | population |
an animal that hunts and kills other animals for food | predator |
an idea about what might happen that is based on what you already know | prediction |
an animal that is hunted or killed by another animal for food | prey |
a type of large molecule that performs important functions inside organisms | protein molecule |
something in the environment that affects an individual’s chances of surviving | selection pressure |
the process in which two parents pass on their genes to create offspring | sexual reproduction |
a group of organisms of the same kind (in one or more populations) that do not reproduce with organisms from any other group | species |
to stay alive | survive |
a specific characteristic of an individual organism | trait |
any difference in traits between individual organisms | variation |