The development and diversification of living organisms over Earth's history is a complex process influenced by various mechanisms. Natural selection plays a critical role, favoring organisms better adapted to their environments, thereby enhancing their survival and reproductive success.
Evolution: The process by which different kinds of living organisms are thought to have developed and diversified from earlier forms during the history of the earth.
Convergent Evolution: Is the independent evolution of similar features in species of different lineages.
Biodiversity: The variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem.
Speciation: The formation of new and distinct species in the course of evolution.
DNA Shuffling: Is a way to rapidly propagate beneficial mutations in a directed evolution experiment.
Homologous Structures: Parts of different organisms that develop from similar tissues in early development.
Artificial Selection: The breeding of plants and animals to produce desirable traits.
Fitness: An organism's ability to survive and reproduce in a particular environment.
Adaptive Radiation: The diversification of a group of organisms into forms filling different ecological niches.
Analogous Structures: Similar in function but having different evolutionary origins.
Gene Pool: The stock of different genes in an interbreeding population.
Mutations: The changing of the structure of a gene
Common Descent: Is the scientific theory that all living organisms on Earth descended from a common ancestor.
Natural Selection: the process whereby organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring.
Adaptations: A change or the process of change by which an organism or species becomes better suited to its environment.
