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In biology, evolution is the process of change in all forms of life over generations, and evolutionary biology is the study of how evolution occurs. Biological populations evolve through genetic changes that correspond to changes in the organisms ' observable traits. Genetic changes include mutations, which are caused by damage or replication ...
Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. [1] [2] It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more or less common within a population over successive generations. [3]
Category. v. t. e. Darwin's finches. Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life forms on Earth.
e. Evolutionary thought, the recognition that species change over time and the perceived understanding of how such processes work, has roots in antiquity—in the ideas of the ancient Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Church Fathers as well as in medieval Islamic science. With the beginnings of modern biological taxonomy in the late 17th century, two ...
Professor of biology Jerry Coyne sums up biological evolution succinctly: [3]. Life on Earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species – perhaps a self-replicating molecule – that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.
Human evolution. The hominoids are descendants of a common ancestor. Human evolution is the evolutionary process within the history of primates that led to the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species of the hominid family that includes all the great apes. [1]
Charles Darwin in 1868. Darwinism is a term used to describe a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others. The theory states that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.
Lineage (evolution) – Sequence of populations, organisms, cells, or genes that form a line of descent. Molecular phylogenetics – Branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences. Most recent common ancestor – Most recent individual from which all organisms in a group are directly descended.