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This glossary of biology terms is a list of definitions of fundamental terms and concepts used in biology, the study of life and of living organisms.It is intended as introductory material for novices; for more specific and technical definitions from sub-disciplines and related fields, see Glossary of cell biology, Glossary of genetics, Glossary of evolutionary biology, Glossary of ecology ...
Corroborating evidence tends to support a proposition that is already supported by some initial evidence, therefore confirming the proposition.
Also called functionalism. The Darwinian view that many or most physiological and behavioral traits of organisms are adaptations that have evolved for specific functions or for specific reasons (as opposed to being byproducts of the evolution of other traits, consequences of biological constraints, or the result of random variation). adaptive radiation The simultaneous or near-simultaneous ...
Biology is the scientific study of life. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] For instance, all organisms are composed of at least one cell that processes hereditary information encoded in genes , which can be transmitted ...
A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world. The theory of biological evolution is more than "just a theory".
The evolution of biological complexity is one important outcome of the process of evolution. [1] Evolution has produced some remarkably complex organisms – although the actual level of complexity is very hard to define or measure accurately in biology, with properties such as gene content, the number of cell types or morphology all proposed as possible metrics.
In biology, taxonomic rank (which some authors prefer to call nomenclatural rank [1] because ranking is part of nomenclature rather than taxonomy proper, according to some definitions of these terms) is the relative or absolute level of a group of organisms (a taxon) in a hierarchy that reflects evolutionary
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.