This is a list of topics in evolutionary biology.

A

abiogenesis

Abiogenesis

Abiogenesis or biopoesis is the study of how biological life arises from inorganic matter through natural processes, and the method by which life on Earth arose...

 - adaptation

Adaptation

An adaptation in biology is a trait with a current functional role in the life history of an organism that is maintained and evolved by means of natural selection. An adaptation refers to both the current state of being adapted and to the dynamic evolutionary process that leads to the adaptation....

 - adaptive radiation

Adaptive radiation

In evolutionary biology, adaptive radiation is the evolution of ecological and phenotypic diversity within a rapidly multiplying lineage. Starting with a recent single ancestor, this process results in the speciation and phenotypic adaptation of an array of species exhibiting different...

 - allele

Allele

An allele is one of two or more forms of a gene or a genetic locus . "Allel" is an abbreviation of allelomorph. Sometimes, different alleles can result in different observable phenotypic traits, such as different pigmentation...

 - allele frequency

Allele frequency

Allele frequency or Gene frequency is the proportion of all copies of a gene that is made up of a particular gene variant . In other words, it is the number of copies of a particular allele divided by the number of copies of all alleles at the genetic place in a population. It can be expressed for...

 - allopatric speciation

Allopatric speciation

Allopatric speciation or geographic speciation is speciation that occurs when biological populations of the same species become isolated due to geographical changes such as mountain building or social changes such as emigration...

 - altruism

Altruism

Altruism is a concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures, and a core aspect of various religious traditions, though the concept of 'others' toward whom concern should be directed can vary among cultures and religions. Altruism is the opposite of...

 - : anagenesis - aposematism

Aposematism

Aposematism , perhaps most commonly known in the context of warning colouration, describes a family of antipredator adaptations where a warning signal is associated with the unprofitability of a prey item to potential predators...

 - Archaeopteryx

Archaeopteryx

Archaeopteryx , sometimes referred to by its German name Urvogel , is a genus of theropod dinosaur that is closely related to birds. The name derives from the Ancient Greek meaning "ancient", and , meaning "feather" or "wing"...

- aquatic adaptation

Aquatic adaptation

Several animal groups have undergone aquatic adaptation, going from being purely terrestrial animals to living at least part of the time in water. The adaptations in early speciation tend to develop as the animal ventures into water in order to find available food. As successive generations spend...

 - artificial selection

Artificial selection

Artificial selection describes intentional breeding for certain traits, or combination of traits. The term was utilized by Charles Darwin in contrast to natural selection, in which the differential reproduction of organisms with certain traits is attributed to improved survival or reproductive...

 - atavism

Atavism

Atavism is the tendency to revert to ancestral type. In biology, an atavism is an evolutionary throwback, such as traits reappearing which had disappeared generations before. Atavisms can occur in several ways...

C

Cambrian explosion

Cambrian explosion

The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation was the relatively rapid appearance, around , of most major phyla, as demonstrated in the fossil record, accompanied by major diversification of other organisms, including animals, phytoplankton, and calcimicrobes...

 - camouflage

Camouflage

Camouflage is a method of concealment that allows an otherwise visible animal, military vehicle, or other object to remain unnoticed, by blending with its environment. Examples include a leopard's spotted coat, the battledress of a modern soldier and a leaf-mimic butterfly...

 - catagenesis (biology)

Catagenesis (biology)

Catagenesis is an archaic term from evolutionary biology referring to evolutionary directions that were considered "retrogressive." It was a term used in contrast to anagenesis, which in present usage denotes the evolution of a single population into a new form without branching lines of descent...

 - gene-centered view of evolution

Gene-centered view of evolution

The gene-centered view of evolution, gene selection theory or selfish gene theory holds that evolution occurs through the differential survival of competing genes, increasing the frequency of those alleles whose phenotypic effects successfully promote their own propagation, with gene defined as...

 - cephalization

Cephalization

Cephalization is considered an evolutionary trend, whereby nervous tissue, over many generations, becomes concentrated toward one end of an organism. This process eventually produces a head region with sensory organs....

 - Sergei Chetverikov

Sergei Chetverikov

Sergei Sergeevich Chetverikov was one of the early contributors to the development of the field of genetics...

 - Chi square test - chronobiology

Chronobiology

Chronobiology is a field of biology that examines periodic phenomena in living organisms and their adaptation to solar- and lunar-related rhythms. These cycles are known as biological rhythms. Chronobiology comes from the ancient Greek χρόνος , and biology, which pertains to the study, or science,...

 - chronospecies

Chronospecies

A chronospecies describes a group of one or more species derived from a sequential development pattern which involves continual and uniform changes from an extinct ancestral form on an evolutionary scale. This sequence of alterations eventually produces a population which is physically,...

 - clade

Clade

A clade is a group consisting of a species and all its descendants. In the terms of biological systematics, a clade is a single "branch" on the "tree of life". The idea that such a "natural group" of organisms should be grouped together and given a taxonomic name is central to biological...

 - cladistics

Cladistics

Cladistics is a method of classifying species of organisms into groups called clades, which consist of an ancestor organism and all its descendants . For example, birds, dinosaurs, crocodiles, and all descendants of their most recent common ancestor form a clade...

 - Climatic adaptation

Climatic adaptation

Climate adaptation refers to specific adaptations in a living organism that develop in response to changes in climate and habitat. Such adaptations could include physical changes, such as skin or fur color and composition changes, or the adaptations could be behavioral, such as burrowing into the...

 - coalescent theory

Coalescent theory

In genetics, coalescent theory is a retrospective model of population genetics. It attempts to trace all alleles of a gene shared by all members of a population to a single ancestral copy, known as the most recent common ancestor...

 - co-evolution

Co-evolution

In biology, coevolution is "the change of a biological object triggered by the change of a related object." Coevolution can occur at many biological levels: it can be as microscopic as correlated mutations between amino acids in a protein, or as macroscopic as covarying traits between different...

 - Co-operation (evolution)

Co-operation (evolution)

Co-operation or co-operative behaviours are terms used to describe behaviours by organisms which are beneficial to other organisms, and are selected for on that basis. Under this definition, altruism is a form of co-operation in which there is no direct benefit to the actor...

 - coefficient of relationship

Coefficient of relationship

In population genetics, Sewall Wright's coefficient of relationship or coefficient of relatedness or relatedness or r is defined as 2 times the Coefficient of Inbreeding...

 - common descent

Common descent

In evolutionary biology, a group of organisms share common descent if they have a common ancestor. There is strong quantitative support for the theory that all living organisms on Earth are descended from a common ancestor....

 - convergent evolution

Convergent evolution

Convergent evolution describes the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages.The wing is a classic example of convergent evolution in action. Although their last common ancestor did not have wings, both birds and bats do, and are capable of powered flight. The wings are...

 - creation-evolution controversy

Creation-evolution controversy

The creation–evolution controversy is a recurring cultural, political, and theological dispute about the origins of the Earth, humanity, life, and the universe....

 - cultivar

Cultivar

A cultivar'Cultivar has two meanings as explained under Formal definition. When used in reference to a taxon, the word does not apply to an individual plant but to all those plants sharing the unique characteristics that define the cultivar. is a plant or group of plants selected for desirable...

 - current research in evolutionary biology

Current research in evolutionary biology

Current research in evolutionary biology covers diverse topics, as should be expected given the centrality of evolution to understanding biology...

 - conspecific song preference

D

Darwin (unit)

Darwin (unit)

The Darwin is a unit of evolutionary change, defined by J.B.S. Haldane in 1949. One Darwin is defined to be an e-fold change in a trait over one million years. Haldane named the unit after Charles Darwin.-Equation:...

 - Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin

Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...

 - Darwinism

Darwinism

Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or of evolution, including some ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin....

 - Darwin's finches

Darwin's finches

Darwin's finches are a group of 14 or 15 species of passerine birds. It is still not clear which bird family they belong to, but they are not related to the true finches. They were first collected by Charles Darwin on the Galápagos Islands during the second voyage of the Beagle...

 - Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins

Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...

 - directional selection

Directional selection

In population genetics, directional selection is a mode of natural selection in which a single phenotype is favored, causing the allele frequency to continuously shift in one direction...

 - Theodosius Dobzhansky

Theodosius Dobzhansky

Theodosius Grygorovych Dobzhansky ForMemRS was a prominent geneticist and evolutionary biologist, and a central figure in the field of evolutionary biology for his work in shaping the unifying modern evolutionary synthesis...

 - Dog breeding

Dog breeding

Dog breeding is the practice of mating selected specimens with the intent to maintain or produce specific qualities and characteristics.Dogs reproduce without human interference, so their offsprings' characteristics are determined by natural selection. Domestic dogs may be intentionally bred by...

 - Domestication

Domestication

Domestication or taming is the process whereby a population of animals or plants, through a process of selection, becomes accustomed to human provision and control. In the Convention on Biological Diversity a domesticated species is defined as a 'species in which the evolutionary process has been...

 - Domestication of the horse

Domestication of the horse

There are a number of hypotheses on many of the key issues regarding the domestication of the horse. Although horses appeared in Paleolithic cave art as early as 30,000 BCE, these were truly wild horses and were probably hunted for meat. How and when horses became domesticated is disputed...

E

ecological genetics

Ecological genetics

Ecological genetics is the study of genetics in natural populations.This contrasts with classical genetics, which works mostly on crosses between laboratory strains, and DNA sequence analysis, which studies genes at the molecular level....

 - ecological selection

Ecological selection

Ecological selection refers to natural selection minus sexual selection, i.e. strictly ecological processes that operate on a species' inherited traits without reference to mating or secondary sex characteristics...

 - endosymbiosis - error threshold (evolution)

Error threshold (evolution)

The error threshold is a concept in the study of evolutionary biology and population genetics concerned with the origins of life, in particular of very early life, before the advent of DNA. The first self-replicating molecules were probably small ribozyme-like RNA molecules...

 - evidence of common descent - evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

 - evolutionary arms race

Evolutionary arms race

In evolutionary biology, an evolutionary arms race is an evolutionary struggle between competing sets of co-evolving genes that develop adaptations and counter-adaptations against each other, resembling an arms race, which are also examples of positive feedback...

 - evolutionary capacitance

Evolutionary capacitance

Just as electric capacitors store and release charge, by analogy evolutionary capacitance is the storage and release of variation. Living systems are robust to mutations. This means that living systems accumulate genetic variation without the variation having a phenotypic effect...

 - evolution of cetaceans

Evolution of cetaceans

The cetaceans are marine mammal descendants of land mammals. Their terrestrial origins are indicated by:* Their need to breathe air from the surface;* The bones of their fins, which resemble the limbs of land mammals...

 - evolution of complexity

Evolution of complexity

The evolution of biological complexity is an important outcome of the process of evolution. 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...

 - evolution of the horse

Evolution of the horse

The evolution of the horse pertains to the phylogenetic ancestry of the modern horse from the small dog-sized, forest-dwelling Hyracotherium over geologic time scales...

 - evolution of mammalian auditory ossicles

Evolution of mammalian auditory ossicles

The evolution of mammalian auditory ossicles is one of the most well-documented and important evolutionary events, demonstrating both numerous transitional forms as well as an excellent example of exaptation, the re-purposing of existing structures during evolution.In reptiles, the eardrum is...

 - evolution of mammals

Evolution of mammals

__FORCETOC__The evolution of mammals within the synapsid lineage was a gradual process that took approximately 70 million years, beginning in the mid-Permian. By the mid-Triassic, there were many species that looked like mammals, and the first true mammals appeared in the early Jurassic...

 - evolution of sex

Evolution of sex

The evolution of sexual reproduction is currently described by several competing scientific hypotheses. All sexually reproducing organisms derive from a common ancestor which was a single celled eukaryotic species. Many protists reproduce sexually, as do the multicellular plants, animals, and fungi...

 - evolution of sirenians

Evolution of sirenians

Sirenia is the order of placental mammals which comprise modern "sea cows" and their extinct relatives. They are the only extant herbivorous marine mammals and the only group of herbivorous mammals to have become completely aquatic. Sirenians are thought to have a 50-million-year-old fossil record...

 - evolution of the eye

Evolution of the eye

The evolution of the eye has been a subject of significant study, as a distinctive example of a homologous organ present in a wide variety of taxa. Certain components of the eye, such as the visual pigments, appear to have a common ancestry – that is, they evolved once, before the animals radiated...

 - evolutionary developmental biology

Evolutionary developmental biology

Evolutionary developmental biology is a field of biology that compares the developmental processes of different organisms to determine the ancestral relationship between them, and to discover how developmental processes evolved...

 - evolutionary dynamics

Evolutionary dynamics

Evolutionary dynamics is the study of the mathematical principles according to which life has evolved and continues to evolve. In this area, Evolution has become a mathematical theory, and any idea of an evolutionary process or mechanism should be studied in the context of the mathematical...

 - evolutionary neuroscience

Evolutionary neuroscience

Evolutionary neuroscience is an interdisciplinary scientific research field that studies the evolution of nervous systems. Evolutionary neuroscientists attempt to understand the evolution and natural history of nervous system structure and function. The field draws on concepts and findings from...

 - evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary psychology

Evolutionary psychology is an approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological traits such as memory, perception, and language from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the functional...

 - evolutionary radiation

Evolutionary radiation

An evolutionary radiation is an increase in taxonomic diversity or morphological disparity, due to adaptive change or the opening of ecospace. Radiations may affect one clade or many, and be rapid or gradual; where they are rapid, and driven by a single lineage's adaptation to their environment,...

 - evolutionary stable strategy - evolutionary tree - evolvability

Evolvability

Evolvability is defined as the capacity of a system for adaptive evolution. Evolvability is the ability of a population of organisms to not merely generate genetic diversity, but to generate adaptive genetic diversity, and thereby evolve through natural selection.In order for a biological organism...

 - experimental evolution

Experimental evolution

In evolutionary and experimental biology, the field of experimental evolution is concerned with testing hypotheses and theories of evolution by use of controlled experiments. Evolution may be observed in the laboratory as populations adapt to new environmental conditions and/or change by such...

 - exaptation

Exaptation

Exaptation, cooption, and preadaptation are related terms referring to shifts in the function of a trait during evolution. For example, a trait can evolve because it served one particular function, but subsequently it may come to serve another. Exaptations are common in both anatomy and behaviour...

 - extinction

Extinction

In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...

F

Joe Felsenstein

Joe Felsenstein

Joseph "Joe" Felsenstein is Professor in the Departments of Genome Sciences and Biology and Adjunct Professor in the Departments of Computer Science and Statistics at the University of Washington in Seattle...

 - R.A. Fisher

Ronald Fisher

Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher FRS was an English statistician, evolutionary biologist, eugenicist and geneticist. Among other things, Fisher is well known for his contributions to statistics by creating Fisher's exact test and Fisher's equation...

 - Fisher's reproductive value

Fisher's reproductive value

Fisher's reproductive value was defined by R. A. Fisher in his 1930 book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection as the expected reproduction of an individual from their current age onward, given that they have survived to their current age...

 - fitness

Fitness (biology)

Fitness is a central idea in evolutionary theory. It can be defined either with respect to a genotype or to a phenotype in a given environment...

 - fitness landscape

Fitness landscape

In evolutionary biology, fitness landscapes or adaptive landscapes are used to visualize the relationship between genotypes and reproductive success. It is assumed that every genotype has a well-defined replication rate . This fitness is the "height" of the landscape...

 - E.B. Ford

E.B. Ford

Edmund Brisco "Henry" Ford FRS Hon. FRCP was a British ecological geneticist. He was a leader among those British biologists who investigated the role of natural selection in nature. As a schoolboy Ford became interested in lepidoptera, the group of insects which includes butterflies and moths...

 - fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

G

Galápagos Islands

Galápagos Islands

The Galápagos Islands are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.The Galápagos Islands and its surrounding waters form an Ecuadorian province, a national park, and a...

 - gene

Gene

A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...

 - gene-centric view of evolution - gene duplication

Gene duplication

Gene duplication is any duplication of a region of DNA that contains a gene; it may occur as an error in homologous recombination, a retrotransposition event, or duplication of an entire chromosome.The second copy of the gene is often free from selective pressure — that is, mutations of it have no...

 - gene flow

Gene flow

In population genetics, gene flow is the transfer of alleles of genes from one population to another.Migration into or out of a population may be responsible for a marked change in allele frequencies...

 - gene pool

Gene pool

In population genetics, a gene pool is the complete set of unique alleles in a species or population.- Description :A large gene pool indicates extensive genetic diversity, which is associated with robust populations that can survive bouts of intense selection...

 - genetic drift

Genetic drift

Genetic drift or allelic drift is the change in the frequency of a gene variant in a population due to random sampling.The alleles in the offspring are a sample of those in the parents, and chance has a role in determining whether a given individual survives and reproduces...

 - genetic hitchhiking

Genetic hitchhiking

Genetic hitchhiking is the process by which an allele may increase in frequency by virtue of being linked to a gene that is positively selected. Proximity on a chromosome may allow genes to be dragged along with a selective sweep experienced by an advantageous gene nearby...

 - genetic recombination

Genetic recombination

Genetic recombination is a process by which a molecule of nucleic acid is broken and then joined to a different one. Recombination can occur between similar molecules of DNA, as in homologous recombination, or dissimilar molecules, as in non-homologous end joining. Recombination is a common method...

 - genetic variation

Genetic variation

Genetic variation, variation in alleles of genes, occurs both within and among populations. Genetic variation is important because it provides the “raw material” for natural selection. Genetic variation is brought about by mutation, a change in a chemical structure of a gene. Polyploidy is an...

 - genotype

Genotype

The genotype is the genetic makeup of a cell, an organism, or an individual usually with reference to a specific character under consideration...

 - genotype-environment correlation - genotype-environment interaction - genotype-phenotype distinction

Genotype-phenotype distinction

The genotype–phenotype distinction is drawn in genetics. "Genotype" is an organism's full hereditary information, even if not expressed. "Phenotype" is an organism's actual observed properties, such as morphology, development, or behavior...

 - Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation....

 - gradualism

Gradualism

Gradualism is the belief in or the policy of advancing toward a goal by gradual, often slow stages.-Politics and society:In politics, the concept of gradualism is used to describe the belief that change ought to be brought about in small, discrete increments rather than in abrupt strokes such as...

 - Peter and Rosemary Grant

Peter and Rosemary Grant

Peter Raymond Grant and Barbara Rosemary Grant, a married couple, are both British evolutionary biologists at Princeton University; each holds the position of Emeritus Professor. They are noted for their work concerning Darwin's finches on the Galápagos Island named Daphne Major...

 - group selection

Group selection

In evolutionary biology, group selection refers to the idea that alleles can become fixed or spread in a population because of the benefits they bestow on groups, regardless of the alleles' effect on the fitness of individuals within that group....

H

J. B. S. Haldane

J. B. S. Haldane

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane FRS , known as Jack , was a British-born geneticist and evolutionary biologist. A staunch Marxist, he was critical of Britain's role in the Suez Crisis, and chose to leave Oxford and moved to India and became an Indian citizen...

 - W. D. Hamilton

W. D. Hamilton

William Donald Hamilton FRS was a British evolutionary biologist, widely recognised as one of the greatest evolutionary theorists of the 20th century....

 - Hardy-Weinberg principle

Hardy-Weinberg principle

The Hardy–Weinberg principle states that both allele and genotype frequencies in a population remain constant—that is, they are in equilibrium—from generation to generation unless specific disturbing influences are introduced...

 - heredity

Heredity

Heredity is the passing of traits to offspring . This is the process by which an offspring cell or organism acquires or becomes predisposed to the characteristics of its parent cell or organism. Through heredity, variations exhibited by individuals can accumulate and cause some species to evolve...

 - hierarchy of life - history of evolutionary thought

History of evolutionary thought

Evolutionary thought, the conception that species change over time, has roots in antiquity, in the ideas of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Chinese as well as in medieval Islamic science...

 - horizontal gene transfer

Horizontal gene transfer

Horizontal gene transfer , also lateral gene transfer , is any process in which an organism incorporates genetic material from another organism without being the offspring of that organism...

 - human evolution

Human evolution

Human evolution refers to the evolutionary history of the genus Homo, including the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species and as a unique category of hominids and mammals...

 - human evolutionary genetics

Human evolutionary genetics

Human evolutionary genetics studies how one human genome differs from the other, the evolutionary past that gave rise to it, and its current effects. Differences between genomes have anthropological, medical and forensic implications and applications...

 - homologous chromosomes - homology (biology)

Homology (biology)

Homology forms the basis of organization for comparative biology. In 1843, Richard Owen defined homology as "the same organ in different animals under every variety of form and function". Organs as different as a bat's wing, a seal's flipper, a cat's paw and a human hand have a common underlying...

 - Julian Huxley

Julian Huxley

Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS was an English evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century evolutionary synthesis...

 - human vestigiality

Human vestigiality

In the context of human evolution, human vestigiality involves those characters occurring in the human species that are considered vestigial—in other words having lost all or most of their original function through evolution...

I

inclusive fitness

Inclusive fitness

In evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology, the inclusive fitness of an organism is the sum of its classical fitness and the number of equivalents of its own offspring it can add to the population by supporting others...

 - insect evolution

Insect evolution

Phylogeny, or phylogenetics, is the study of evolutionary relatedness among groups of organisms, which is discovered through molecular sequencing data and morphological data matrices. Insects are a highly diverse group of organisms with a worldwide distribution, thus having a complex evolutionary...

 - Invertebrate paleontology

Invertebrate paleontology

Invertebrate paleontology is sometimes described as Invertebrate paleozoology or Invertebrate paleobiology....

 (a.k.a. invertebrate paleobiology or paleozoology)

L

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de la Marck , often known simply as Lamarck, was a French naturalist...

 - Lamarckism

Lamarckism

Lamarckism is the idea that an organism can pass on characteristics that it acquired during its lifetime to its offspring . It is named after the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck , who incorporated the action of soft inheritance into his evolutionary theories...

 - landrace

Landrace

A landrace is a local variety of a domesticated animal or plant species which has developed largely by natural processes, by adaptation to the natural and cultural environment in which it lives. It differs from a formal breed which has been bred deliberately to conform to a particular standard...

 - Language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

 -Last common ancestor - Last universal ancestor

Last universal ancestor

The last universal ancestor , also called the last universal common ancestor , or the cenancestor, is the most recent organism from which all organisms now living on Earth descend. Thus it is the most recent common ancestor of all current life on Earth...

 - Richard Lewontin

Richard Lewontin

Richard Charles "Dick" Lewontin is an American evolutionary biologist, geneticist and social commentator. A leader in developing the mathematical basis of population genetics and evolutionary theory, he pioneered the notion of using techniques from molecular biology such as gel electrophoresis to...

 - list of gene families - List of human evolution fossils - life-history theory - Wen-Hsiung Li

Wen-Hsiung Li

Wen-Hsiung Li is a Taiwanese American scientist working in the fields of molecular evolution, population genetics, and genomics...

 - living fossils - Charles Lyell

Charles Lyell

Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, Kt FRS was a British lawyer and the foremost geologist of his day. He is best known as the author of Principles of Geology, which popularised James Hutton's concepts of uniformitarianism – the idea that the earth was shaped by slow-moving forces still in operation...

M

macroevolution

Macroevolution

Macroevolution is evolution on a scale of separated gene pools. Macroevolutionary studies focus on change that occurs at or above the level of species, in contrast with microevolution, which refers to smaller evolutionary changes within a species or population.The process of speciation may fall...

 - macromutation - The Major Transitions in Evolution

The Major Transitions in Evolution

The Major Transitions in Evolution is a book written by John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry . This was a seminal publication that continues to contribute to ongoing issues in evolutionary biology....

- maladaptation

Maladaptation

A maladaptation is a trait that is more harmful than helpful. It is a term used when discussing both humans and animals in fields such as evolutionary biology, biology, psychology , sociology, and other fields where adaptation and responsive change may occur...

 - mass extinctions - mating systems - John Maynard Smith

John Maynard Smith

John Maynard Smith,His surname was Maynard Smith, not Smith, nor was it hyphenated. F.R.S. was a British theoretical evolutionary biologist and geneticist. Originally an aeronautical engineer during the Second World War, he took a second degree in genetics under the well-known biologist J.B.S....

 - Ernst Mayr

Ernst Mayr

Ernst Walter Mayr was one of the 20th century's leading evolutionary biologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, historian of science, and naturalist...

 - Gregor Mendel

Gregor Mendel

Gregor Johann Mendel was an Austrian scientist and Augustinian friar who gained posthumous fame as the founder of the new science of genetics. Mendel demonstrated that the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants follows particular patterns, now referred to as the laws of Mendelian inheritance...

 - memetics

Memetics

Memetics is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution, originating from Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene. It purports to be an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. A meme, analogous to a gene, is essentially a "unit of...

 - Mendelian inheritance

Mendelian inheritance

Mendelian inheritance is a scientific description of how hereditary characteristics are passed from parent organisms to their offspring; it underlies much of genetics...

 - microevolution

Microevolution

Microevolution is the changes in allele frequencies that occur over time within a population. This change is due to four different processes: mutation, selection , gene flow, and genetic drift....

 - Micropaleontology

Micropaleontology

Micropaleontology is the branch of paleontology that studies microfossils.-Microfossils:...

 (a.k.a. micropaleobiology) - Miller–Urey experiment - mimicry - Mitochondrial Eve

Mitochondrial Eve

In the field of human genetics, Mitochondrial Eve refers to the matrilineal "MRCA" . In other words, she was the woman from whom all living humans today descend, on their mother's side, and through the mothers of those mothers and so on, back until all lines converge on one person...

 - modern evolutionary synthesis

Modern evolutionary synthesis

The modern evolutionary synthesis is a union of ideas from several biological specialties which provides a widely accepted account of evolution...

 - molecular clock

Molecular clock

The molecular clock is a technique in molecular evolution that uses fossil constraints and rates of molecular change to deduce the time in geologic history when two species or other taxa diverged. It is used to estimate the time of occurrence of events called speciation or radiation...

 - molecular evolution

Molecular evolution

Molecular evolution is in part a process of evolution at the scale of DNA, RNA, and proteins. Molecular evolution emerged as a scientific field in the 1960s as researchers from molecular biology, evolutionary biology and population genetics sought to understand recent discoveries on the structure...

 - molecular phylogeny

Molecular phylogeny

Molecular phylogenetics is the analysis of hereditary molecular differences, mainly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. The result of a molecular phylogenetic analysis is expressed in a phylogenetic tree...

 - molecular systematics - Monogamy

Evolution of Monogamy

Monogamous pairing in animals refers to the natural history of mating systems in which species pair bond to raise offspring. This is associated, usually implicitly, with sexual monogamy.- Animals :...

 - mosaic evolution

Mosaic evolution

Mosaic evolution is the concept that evolutionary change takes place in some body parts or systems without simultaneous changes in other parts...

 - most recent common ancestor

Most recent common ancestor

In genetics, the most recent common ancestor of any set of organisms is the most recent individual from which all organisms in the group are directly descended...

 - Hermann Joseph Muller

Hermann Joseph Muller

Hermann Joseph Muller was an American geneticist, educator, and Nobel laureate best known for his work on the physiological and genetic effects of radiation as well as his outspoken political beliefs...

 - Muller's ratchet

Muller's ratchet

In evolutionary genetics, Muller's ratchet is the process by which the genomes of an asexual population accumulate deleterious mutations in an irreversible manner....

 - mutation

Mutation

In molecular biology and genetics, mutations are changes in a genomic sequence: the DNA sequence of a cell's genome or the DNA or RNA sequence of a virus. They can be defined as sudden and spontaneous changes in the cell. Mutations are caused by radiation, viruses, transposons and mutagenic...

 - mutational meltdown

Mutational meltdown

Mutational meltdown refers to the process by which a small population accumulates harmful mutations, which leads to loss of fitness and decline of the population size, which may lead to further accumulation of deleterious mutations due to inbreeding depression...

N

natural selection

Natural selection

Natural selection is the nonrandom process by which biologic traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution....

 - Nature versus nurture

Nature versus nurture

The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities versus personal experiences The nature versus nurture debate concerns the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities ("nature," i.e. nativism, or innatism) versus personal experiences...

 - Neo-Darwinism

Neo-Darwinism

Neo-Darwinism is the 'modern synthesis' of Darwinian evolution through natural selection with Mendelian genetics, the latter being a set of primary tenets specifying that evolution involves the transmission of characteristics from parent to child through the mechanism of genetic transfer, rather...

 - neutral theory of molecular evolution

Neutral theory of molecular evolution

The neutral theory of molecular evolution states that the vast majority of evolutionary changes at the molecular level are caused by random drift of selectively neutral mutants . The theory was introduced by Motoo Kimura in the late 1960s and early 1970s...

 - Baron Franz Nopcsa

O

Susumu Ohno

Susumu Ohno

was an Asian American geneticist and evolutionary biologist, and seminal researcher in the field of molecular evolution.- Biography :Susumu Ohno was born of Japanese parents in Seoul, Korea, on February 1, 1928. The second of five children, he was the son of the minister of education of the...

 - Aleksandr Oparin

Aleksandr Oparin

Alexander Ivanovich Oparin was a Soviet biochemist notable for his contributions to the theory of the origin of life, and for his authorship of the book The Origin of Life. He also studied the biochemistry of material processing by plants, and enzyme reactions in plant cells...

 - On The Origin of Species - Origin of birds - orthologous genes

P

Paleoanthropology

Paleoanthropology

Paleoanthropology, which combines the disciplines of paleontology and physical anthropology, is the study of ancient humans as found in fossil hominid evidence such as petrifacted bones and footprints.-19th century:...

 - Paleobiology

Paleobiology

Paleobiology is a growing and comparatively new discipline which combines the methods and findings of the natural science biology with the methods and findings of the earth science paleontology...

 - Paleobotany

Paleobotany

Paleobotany, also spelled as palaeobotany , is the branch of paleontology or paleobiology dealing with the recovery and identification of plant remains from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments , and both the evolutionary history of plants, with a...

 - Paleontology

Paleontology

Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...

 - Paleozoology

Paleozoology

Paleozoology, also spelled as palaeozoology , is the branch of paleontology or paleobiology dealing with the recovery and identification of multicellular animal remains from geological contexts, and the use of these fossils in the reconstruction of prehistoric environments and ancient...

 - Paleozoology: Vertebrate

Vertebrate paleontology

Vertebrate paleontology is a large subfield to paleontology seeking to discover the behavior, reproduction and appearance of extinct animals with vertebrae or a notochord, through the study of their fossilized remains...

s - Paleozoology: Invertebrate

Invertebrate paleontology

Invertebrate paleontology is sometimes described as Invertebrate paleozoology or Invertebrate paleobiology....

s - parallel evolution

Parallel evolution

Parallel evolution is the development of a similar trait in related, but distinct, species descending from the same ancestor, but from different clades.-Parallel vs...

 - paraphyletic - particulate inheritance

Particulate inheritance theory

Particulate inheritance is a pattern of inheritance discovered by Mendelian theorists showing that characteristics can be passed from generation to generation through "discrete particles"...

 - peppered moth

Peppered moth

The peppered moth is a temperate species of night-flying moth. Peppered moth evolution is often used by educators as an example of natural selection.- Distribution :...

 - peppered moth evolution

Peppered moth evolution

The evolution of the peppered moth over the last two hundred years has been studied in detail. Originally, the vast majority of peppered moths had light colouration, which effectively camouflaged them against the light-coloured trees and lichens which they rested upon...

 - peripatric speciation

Peripatric speciation

Peripatric and peripatry are terms from biogeography, referring to organisms whose ranges are closely adjacent but do not overlap, being separated where these organisms do not occur – for example a wide river or a mountain range. Such organisms are usually closely related Peripatric and...

 - phenotype

Phenotype

A phenotype is an organism's observable characteristics or traits: such as its morphology, development, biochemical or physiological properties, behavior, and products of behavior...

 - phylogenetics

Phylogenetics

In biology, phylogenetics is the study of evolutionary relatedness among groups of organisms , which is discovered through molecular sequencing data and morphological data matrices...

 - phylogeny - phylogenetic tree

Phylogenetic tree

A phylogenetic tree or evolutionary tree is a branching diagram or "tree" showing the inferred evolutionary relationships among various biological species or other entities based upon similarities and differences in their physical and/or genetic characteristics...

 - pikaia

Pikaia

Pikaia gracilens is an extinct animal known from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia. -Discovery:It was discovered by Charles Walcott and was first described by him in 1911. It was named after Pika Peak, a mountain in Alberta, Canada. Based on the obvious and regular segmentation...

- Plant evolution

Plant evolution

Plant evolution is the subset of evolutionary phenomena that concern plants. Evolutionary phenomena are characteristics of populations that are described by averages, medians, distributions, and other statistical methods. This distinguishes plant evolution from plant development, a branch of...

 - polymorphism (biology)

Polymorphism (biology)

Polymorphism in biology occurs when two or more clearly different phenotypes exist in the same population of a species — in other words, the occurrence of more than one form or morph...

 - population

Population

A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...

 - Population bottleneck

Population bottleneck

A population bottleneck is an evolutionary event in which a significant percentage of a population or species is killed or otherwise prevented from reproducing....

 - population dynamics

Population dynamics

Population dynamics is the branch of life sciences that studies short-term and long-term changes in the size and age composition of populations, and the biological and environmental processes influencing those changes...

 - population genetics

Population genetics

Population genetics is the study of allele frequency distribution and change under the influence of the four main evolutionary processes: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and gene flow. It also takes into account the factors of recombination, population subdivision and population...

 - preadaptation

Preadaptation

In evolutionary biology, preadaptation describes a situation where a species evolves to use a preexisting structure or trait inherited from an ancestor for a potentially unrelated function...

 - prehistoric archaeology

Prehistoric archaeology

History is the study of the past using written records. Archaeology can also be used to study the past alongside history. Prehistoric archaeology is the study of the past before historical records began....

 - Principles of Geology

Principles of Geology

Principles of Geology, being an attempt to explain the former changes of the Earth's surface, by reference to causes now in operation, is a book by the Scottish geologist Charles Lyell....

- George R. Price

George R. Price

George Robert Price was an American population geneticist. Originally a physical chemist and later a science journalist, he moved to London in 1967, where he worked in theoretical biology at the Galton Laboratory, making three important contributions: first, rederiving W.D...

 - Price equation

Price equation

The Price equation is a covariance equation which is a mathematical description of evolution and natural selection. The Price equation was derived by George R. Price, working in London to re-derive W.D. Hamilton's work on kin selection...

 - punctuated equilibrium

Punctuated equilibrium

Punctuated equilibrium is a theory in evolutionary biology which proposes that most species will exhibit little net evolutionary change for most of their geological history, remaining in an extended state called stasis...

 - Plant Evolutionary Developmental Biology

Plant evolutionary developmental biology

Evolutionary developmental biology refers to the study of developmental programs and patterns from an evolutionary perspective. It seeks to understand the various influences shaping the form and nature of life on the planet. Evo-devo arose as a separate branch of science rather recently. An early...

R

race (biology)

Race (biology)

In biology, races are distinct genetically divergent populations within the same species with relatively small morphological and genetic differences. The populations can be described as ecological races if they arise from adaptation to different local habitats or geographic races when they are...

 - Red Queen - recapitulation theory

Recapitulation theory

The theory of recapitulation, also called the biogenetic law or embryological parallelism—and often expressed as "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"—is a disproven hypothesis that in developing from embryo to adult, animals go through stages resembling or representing successive stages...

 - recombination - Bernhard Rensch

Bernhard Rensch

Bernhard Rensch was a German evolutionary biologist, and ornithologist who did field work in Indonesia and India. He is probably best known as one of the architects of the modern evolutionary synthesis, which he popularised in Germany...

S

selection

Selection

In the context of evolution, certain traits or alleles of genes segregating within a population may be subject to selection. Under selection, individuals with advantageous or "adaptive" traits tend to be more successful than their peers reproductively—meaning they contribute more offspring to the...

 - selective breeding

Selective breeding

Selective breeding is the process of breeding plants and animals for particular genetic traits. Typically, strains that are selectively bred are domesticated, and the breeding is sometimes done by a professional breeder. Bred animals are known as breeds, while bred plants are known as varieties,...

 - Selfish gene - sexual selection

Sexual selection

Sexual selection, a concept introduced by Charles Darwin in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species, is a significant element of his theory of natural selection...

 - sociobiology

Sociobiology

Sociobiology is a field of scientific study which is based on the assumption that social behavior has resulted from evolution and attempts to explain and examine social behavior within that context. Often considered a branch of biology and sociology, it also draws from ethology, anthropology,...

 - species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 - speciation

Speciation

Speciation is the evolutionary process by which new biological species arise. The biologist Orator F. Cook seems to have been the first to coin the term 'speciation' for the splitting of lineages or 'cladogenesis,' as opposed to 'anagenesis' or 'phyletic evolution' occurring within lineages...

 - species flock

Species flock

In evolutionary biology, a species flock is a diverse, primarily monophyletic, group of closely related species in an isolated area.A species flock may arise when a species penetrates a new geographical area and diversifies to occupy a variety of ecological niches; this process is known as...

 - sperm competition

Sperm competition

Sperm competition is a term used to refer to the competitive process between spermatozoa of two different males to fertilize an egg of a lone female. Competition occurs whenever females engage in promiscuous mating to increase their chances in producing more viable offspring...

 - stabilizing selection

Stabilizing selection

-Description:Stabilizing or ambidirectional selection, , is a type of natural selection in which genetic diversity decreases as the population stabilizes on a particular trait value. This is probably the most common mechanism of action for natural selection...

 - strain (biology)

Strain (biology)

In biology, a strain is a low-level taxonomic rank used in three related ways.-Microbiology and virology:A strain is a genetic variant or subtype of a micro-organism . For example, a "flu strain" is a certain biological form of the influenza or "flu" virus...

 - subspecies

Subspecies

Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...

 - survival of the fittest

Survival of the fittest

"Survival of the fittest" is a phrase originating in evolutionary theory, as an alternative description of Natural selection. The phrase is today commonly used in contexts that are incompatible with the original meaning as intended by its first two proponents: British polymath philosopher Herbert...

 - Survival value - symbiogenesis

Symbiogenesis

Symbiogenesis is the merging of two separate organisms to form a single new organism. The idea originated with Konstantin Mereschkowsky in his 1926 book Symbiogenesis and the Origin of Species, which proposed that chloroplasts originate from cyanobacteria captured by a protozoan...

 - systematics

Systematics

Biological systematics is the study of the diversification of terrestrial life, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Relationships are visualized as evolutionary trees...

 - George Gaylord Simpson

George Gaylord Simpson

George Gaylord Simpson was an American paleontologist. Simpson was perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century, and a major participant in the modern evolutionary synthesis, contributing Tempo and mode in evolution , The meaning of evolution and The major features of...

 - G. Ledyard Stebbins

G. Ledyard Stebbins

George Ledyard Stebbins, Jr. was an American botanist and geneticist who is widely regarded as one of the leading evolutionary biologists of the 20th century. Stebbins received his Ph.D. in botany from Harvard University in 1931. He went on to the University of California, Berkeley, where his work...

T

Tiktaalik

Tiktaalik

Tiktaalik is a genus of extinct sarcopterygian from the late Devonian period, with many features akin to those of tetrapods . It is an example from several lines of ancient sarcopterygian "fish" developing adaptations to the oxygen-poor shallow-water habitats of its time, which led to the...

- timeline of evolution

Timeline of evolution

This timeline of evolution of life outlines the major events in the development of life on planet Earth since it first originated until the present day. In biology, evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations...

 - Trait (biological) - transgressive phenotype - transitional fossil

Transitional fossil

A transitional fossil is any fossilized remains of a lifeform that exhibits characteristics of two distinct taxonomic groups. A transitional fossil is the fossil of an organism near the branching point where major individual lineages diverge...

 - transposon

Transposon

Transposable elements are sequences of DNA that can move or transpose themselves to new positions within the genome of a single cell. The mechanism of transposition can be either "copy and paste" or "cut and paste". Transposition can create phenotypically significant mutations and alter the cell's...

 - Triangle of U

Triangle of U

The Triangle of U is a theory about the evolution and relationships between members of the plant genus Brassica. The theory states that the genomes of three ancestral species of Brassica combined to create three of the common contemporary vegetables and oilseed crop species...

V

variety (plant)

Variety (plant)

Plant variety is a legal term, following the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants Convention. Recognition of a cultivated plant as a "variety" in this particular sense provides its breeder with some legal protection, so-called plant breeders' rights, depending to some...

 - Vertebrate paleontology

Vertebrate paleontology

Vertebrate paleontology is a large subfield to paleontology seeking to discover the behavior, reproduction and appearance of extinct animals with vertebrae or a notochord, through the study of their fossilized remains...

 (a.k.a. vertebrate paleobiology or paleozoology) - viral evolution - The Voyage of the Beagle

The Voyage of the Beagle

The Voyage of the Beagle is a title commonly given to the book written by Charles Darwin and published in 1839 as his Journal and Remarks, bringing him considerable fame and respect...

- vestigiality

W

Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace

Alfred Russel Wallace, OM, FRS was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist and biologist...

 - Wallace effect

Wallace effect

The Wallace Effect is a hypothesis developed by British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace which posits that natural selection can contribute to the reproductive isolation of incipient species by encouraging varieties to develop barriers to hybridization....

 - Wallace Line

Wallace Line

The Wallace Line separates the ecozones of Asia and Wallacea, a transitional zone between Asia and Australia. West of the line are found organisms related to Asiatic species; to the east, a mixture of species of Asian and Australian origin is present...

 - Wallacea

Wallacea

Wallacea is a biogeographical designation for a group of Indonesian islands separated by deep water straits from the Asian and Australian continental shelves. Wallacea includes Sulawesi, the largest island in the group, as well as Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Sumba, Timor, Halmahera, Buru, Seram, and...

 - George C. Williams

George C. Williams

Professor George Christopher Williams was an American evolutionary biologist.Williams was a professor emeritus of biology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He was best known for his vigorous critique of group selection. The work of Williams in this area, along with W. D...

 - Edward O. Wilson - Sewall Wright

Sewall Wright

Sewall Green Wright was an American geneticist known for his influential work on evolutionary theory and also for his work on path analysis. With R. A. Fisher and J.B.S. Haldane, he was a founder of theoretical population genetics. He is the discoverer of the inbreeding coefficient and of...