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Understanding Evolution

Understanding Evolution

Your one-stop source for information on evolution

Understanding Evolution

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  • Evolution 101
    • An introduction to evolution: what is evolution and how does it work?
      • 1_historyoflife_menu_iconThe history of life: looking at the patterns – Change over time and shared ancestors
      • 2_mechanisms_menu_iconMechanisms: the processes of evolution – Selection, mutation, migration, and more
      • 3_microevo_menu_iconMicroevolution – Evolution within a population
      • 4_speciation_menu_iconSpeciation – How new species arise
      • 5_macroevo_menu_iconMacroevolution – Evolution above the species level
      • 6_bigissues_menu_iconThe big issues – Pacing, diversity, complexity, and trends
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Home → L

L

Lucy

Posted July 11, 2020

The name given to a particular female hominid (of the species Australopithecus afarensis) who lived in what is now Ethiopia about three million years ago. “Lucy” is famous because she left behind a very complete fossilized skeleton found in 1974.

longevity

Posted July 11, 2020

Long life; long duration of existence.

Linnaean classification

Posted July 11, 2020

The standard system of classification in which every organism is assigned a kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. This system groups organisms into ever smaller and smaller groups (like a series of boxes within boxes, called a nested hierarchy).

life history

Posted July 11, 2020

Traits that make up the life cycle of an organism. An organism’s life history includes characteristics related to reproduction, development, and growth (e.g., fecundity, types of larval stages passed through, size at adulthood, and habitats used at different points in the life cycle).

lek

Posted July 11, 2020

An area where animals congregate to perform courtship displays and select mates.

Late Heavy Bombardment

Posted July 11, 2020

The period about 600 million years after the Solar System started to form (early in the Solar System’s history, but “late” in its formation) when the rate of collisions between bodies was much higher than it is now.

ladderized phylogenetic tree

Posted July 11, 2020

A phylogenetic tree in which the most taxon-rich clades are consistently positioned to the right of less diverse clades on vertically-oriented trees or above less diverse clades on horizontally-oriented trees.

lineage splitting

Posted July 11, 2020

An event in which a single historical lineage gives rise to two or more descendent lineages. Every node on a phylogeny is a lineage-splitting event.

locus

Posted July 10, 2020

The place in the DNA where a gene is located. For example, the pea color locus is the place in a pea plant’s DNA that determines what the color of the peas will be. The pea color locus may contain DNA that makes the peas yellow or DNA that makes the peas green — these are called the yellow and green alleles.

lineage

Posted July 3, 2020

A continuous line of descent; a series of organisms, populations, cells, or genes connected by ancestor/descendent relationships.

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