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In biology, a biological life cycle (or just life cycle when the biological context is clear) is a series of stages of the life of an organism, that begins as a zygote, often in an egg, and concludes as an adult that reproduces, producing an offspring in the form of a new zygote which then itself goes through the same series of stages, the ...
All organisms follow a specific sequence in their development, [9] beginning with gestation and ending with death, which is known as the life cycle. Events in between usually include birth, childhood, maturation, reproduction, and senescence, and together these comprise the life history strategy of that organism.
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]
When two or more species evolve in company with each other, one species adapts to changes in other species. This type of evolution often happens in species that have symbiotic relationships. For example, predator-prey coevolution, this is the most common type of co-evolution.
The definition of life has long been a challenge for scientists and philosophers. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] This is partially because life is a process, not a substance. [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] This is complicated by a lack of knowledge of the characteristics of living entities, if any, that may have developed outside Earth.
The tree of life or universal tree of life is a metaphor, conceptual model, and research tool used to explore the evolution of life and describe the relationships between organisms, both living and extinct, as described in a famous passage in Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859). [1]
Universal evolution is a theory of evolution formulated by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Julian Huxley that describes the gradual development of the Universe from subatomic particles to human society, considered by Teilhard as the last stage.
A recently observed example has as protagonists M. xanthus (predator) and E. coli (prey) in which a parallel evolution of both species can be observed through genomic and phenotypic modifications, producing in future generations a better adaptation of one of the species that is counteracted by the evolution of the other, thus generating an arms ...