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Common descent is a concept in evolutionary biology applicable when one species is the ancestor of two or more species later in time. According to modern evolutionary biology, all living beings could be descendants of a unique ancestor commonly referred to as the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) of all life on Earth. [1] [2] [3] [4]
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 ...
Figure 6. Imperfect transcritical bifurcation phase portraits. Five values of r are shown, given relative to the two critical points. Note that the y-intercept value is the same as h, or the magnitude of the imperfection. The green and blue points are stable, while the green red and magenta are unstable. The black dots indicate semistable fixed ...
Evolutionary taxonomy, evolutionary systematics or Darwinian classification is a branch of biological classification that seeks to classify organisms using a combination of phylogenetic relationship (shared descent), progenitor-descendant relationship (serial descent), and degree of evolutionary change.
Also known as descent with modification. Over time these evolutionary processes lead to formation of new species ( speciation ), changes within lineages ( anagenesis ), and loss of species ( extinction ).
According to Ernst Mayr, professor of zoology at Harvard University, Darwin's most distinct contributions to evolutionary biology and ecology are as follows: "The first is the non-constancy of species, or the modern conception of evolution itself. The second is the notion of branching evolution, implying the common descent of all species of ...
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.
Infinite descent, a method going back to Fermat to solve Diophantine equations; Descent (mathematics), an idea extending the notion of "gluing" in topology Hadamard's method of descent, a technique for solving partial differential equations