Ap Bio Chapter 15 Flashcards

283169123	Stromatolites	layered rocks that form when certain prokaryotes bind thin films of sediment together
283169124	polymers	large compound formed from combinations of many monomers
283169125	Protocells	droplets with membranes that maintained an internal chemistry different from that of their surroundings
283169126	Self-Replicating RNA	first genetic material was probably RNA, have ribozymes that catalyze many diff. reactions, RNA can code for and replicate=dual role
283169127	Ribozymes	An enzymatic RNA molecule that catalyzes reactions during RNA splicing.
283169128	Macroevolution	the hypothesis that processes similar to those at work in microevolution can, over eons of time, transform an organism into a completely different kind of organism
283169129	Radiometric Dating	a method of determining the absolute age of an object by comparing the relative percentages of a radioactive (parent) isotope and a stable (daughter) isotope
283169130	Geologic Record	The division of Earth's history into time periods, grouped into three eons—Archaean, Proterozoic, and Phanerozoic—and further subdivided into eras, periods, and epochs.
283169131	Continental Drift	the hypothesis that states that the continents once formed a single landmass, broke up, and drifted to their present locations
283169132	Plate Tectonics	the theory that pieces of Earth's lithosphere are in constant motion, driven by convection currents in the mantle
283169133	Pangaea	(plate tectonics) a hypothetical continent including all the landmass of the earth prior to the Triassic period when it split into Laurasia and Gondwanaland
283169134	Evo-devo	Evolutionary developmental biology; a field of biology that compares developmental processes of different multicellular organisms to understand how these processes have evolved and how changes can modify existing organismal features or lead to new ones.
283169135	Paedomorphosis	The retention in an adult organism of the juvenile features of its evolutionary ancestors.
283169136	Phylogeny	(biology) the sequence of events involved in the evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms
283169137	Analogy	drawing a comparison in order to show a similarity in some respect
283169138	Systematics	the classification of living organisms in terms of their natural relationships; it includes describing, naming, and classifying the organisms
283169139	Taxonomy	practice of classifying plants and animals according to their presumed natural relationships
283169140	Binomial	The two-part latinized name of a species, consisting of genus and specific epithet.
283169141	Genus	(biology) taxonomic group containing one or more species
283169142	Family	(biology) a taxonomic group containing one or more genera
283169143	Orders	In classification, the taxonomic category above family.
283169144	Classes	In classification, the taxonomic category above order.
283169145	Phyla	the second largest taxonomic category in the animal kingdom
283169146	Kingdoms	The major groups into which living thing are classified. Animal, Plant, Fungi, Protists, Bacteria, Archaea. There is currently much debate about the validity of the traditional classification groups in light of new evidence of evolutionary relationships.
283169147	Domains	a taxonomic category above the kingdom level; the three domains of life are Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya
283169148	Taxon	A named taxonomic unit at any given level of classification.
283169149	Phylogenetic Trees	a branching diagram that represents a hypothesis about the evolutionary history of a group of organisms
283169150	Cladistics	a system of biological taxonomy based on the quantitative analysis of comparative data and used to reconstruct cladograms summarizing the (assumed) phylogenetic relations and evolutionary history of groups of organisms
283169151	Clades	a group of species that includes an ancestral species and all its descendants.
283169152	Monophyletic	Pertaining to a taxon derived from a single ancestral species that gave rise to no species in any other taxa.
283169153	Shared Ancestral Character	A character, shared by members of a particular clade, that originated in an ancestor that is not a member of that clade.
283169154	Shared Derived Character	an evolutionary novelty unique to a particular clade
283169155	Outgroup	A species or group of species that is closely related to the group of species being studied, but clearly not as closely related as any study-group members are to each other.
283169156	Ingroup	In a cladistic study of evolutionary relationships among taxa of organisms, the group of taxa that is actually being analyzed.
283169157	Parsimony	extreme stinginess
283169158	Molecular Clock	Model that uses DNA comparisons to estimate the length of time that two species have been evolving independently
283169159	Three Domain System	A system of taxonomic classification based on three basic groups: Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukarya
283169160	Horizontal Gene Transfer	The transfer of genes from one genome to another through mechanisms such as transposable elements, plasmid exchange, viral activity, and perhaps fusions of different organisms.