Biology: Chapter 17 Vocabulary

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genetic traits that altar during the developmental stage of an organisms embryonic state.

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Developmental genes

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The period of time beginning 570 million years ago ending 245 million years ago; falls between the Proterozoic and Mesozoic Eras and is divided into the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian Periods.

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Paleozoic Era

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The fundamental unit in the hierarchy of time units; a part of geologic time during which a particular sequence of rocks designated as a system was deposited. Units of geological time that are the major subdivisions of Eras.

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Period

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Informal term describing 7/8 of geologic time from the beginning of the earth to the beginning of the Cambrian Period of the Paleozoic Era. During this time the atmosphere and oceans formed, life originated (or possibly "colonized" Earth), eukaryotes and simple animals evolved and by the end of the precambrian they began to accumulate hard preservable parts, the common occurrence of which marks the beginning of the Cambrian.

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Precambrian

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Polymers of amino acids formed spontaneously from inorganic molecules; have enzyme-like properties and can catalyze chemical reactions in a biodegradable sphere

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Proteinoids microsphere

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Type of cell that lacks a membrane-bound nucleus and has no membrane organelles; a bacterium.

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prokaryote

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A model that holds that the evolutionary process is characterized by long periods with little or no change interspersed with short periods of rapid speciation.

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Punctuated equilibrium

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The observed remains of once-living organisms taken as a whole

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Fossil record

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The elimination of all individuals in a group

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Extinction

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One of the major divisions of the geologic time scale.

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Eras

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Subdivision of a geological period.

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Epoch

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A type of cell found in many organisms including single-celled protists and multicellular fungi, plants, and animals; characterized by a membrane-bounded nucleus and other membraneous organelles

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Eukaryote

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Theory that attempts to explain the origin of the DNA-containing mitochondria and chloroplasts in early eukaryotes by the engulfing of various types of bacteria that were not digested but became permanent additions to the ancestral "eukaryote".

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Endosymbiosis

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Type of geologic time (absolute time being the other) that places events in a sequence relative to each other.

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Relative dating

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Type of absolute time determined by the relative porportions of radioisotopes to stable daughter isotopes.

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Radioactive dating

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(also known as guide fossils or zone fossils) are fossils used to define and identify geologic periods (or faunal stages).

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Index fossils

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of a quantity whose value decreases with time is the interval required for the quantity to decay to half of its initial value.

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Half-life

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are the most advanced of all the Hominid species.

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Homo sapiens sapiens

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specify the anterior-posterior axis and segment identity of metazoan organisms during early embryonic development.

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Hox genes

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is a chronologic schema (or idealized model) relating stratigraphy to time that is used by geologists

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Geologic time scale

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Era is one of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic eon.

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Mesozoic

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Era is divided into two periods, the Paleogene and Neogene, and they are in turn divided into epochs.

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Cenozoic

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was an experiment that simulated hypothetical conditions thought at the time to be present on the early Earth, and tested for the occurrence of chemical evolution.

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Miller–Urey experiment

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is a molecule containing both amine and carboxyl functional groups.

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Amino acid

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Any of several events in the Earth's past in which large numbers of species (in some cases, up to eighty percent) became extinct.

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Mass extinction

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a type of molecule that consists of a long chain of nucleotide units.

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RNA

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is a membrane-enclosed organelle found in most eukaryotic cells.

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Mitochondrion

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are organelles found in plant cells and other eukaryotic organisms that conduct photosynthesis.

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Chloroplasts

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also known as blue-green algae, blue-green bacteria or Cyanophyta, is a phylum of bacteria that obtain their energy through photosynthesis

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Cyanobacteria

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is an organized structure of DNA and protein that is found in cells.

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Chromosome

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a scale of analysis of evolution in separated gene pools.

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Macroevolution

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is a rapid evolutionary radiation characterized by an increase in the morphological and ecological diversity of a single, rapidly diversifying lineage.

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Adaptive radiation

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describes the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages.

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Convergent evolution

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"the change of a biological object triggered by the change of a related object".

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Coevolution

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The study of ancient life by collection and analysis of fossils.

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Paleontology