Chapter 2: Evolution Notes

Sections

1. 2A Darwin, Wallace and natural selection Mastered

   Early ideas about change in living things, Lamarck's rejected theory, Darwin's Beagle voyage and the Galápagos, artificial selection, Malthus, Wallace's Line, and the four conditions for evolution by natural selection.

   Open notes
2. 2B Natural selection and allele frequency Mastered

   Where variation comes from (mutation and sexual reproduction), gene pools and allele frequencies, evolution as a change in allele frequency, the peppered moth story with its modern evidence, and directional, stabilising and disruptive selection.

   Open notes
3. 2C How new species form Mastered

   What a species is, gene flow and reproductive isolation, isolating mechanisms such as timing, behaviour and hybrid sterility, allopatric and sympatric speciation, adaptive radiation, and examples from rock-wallabies, cicadas and Darwin's finches.

   Open notes
4. 2D Evidence from fossils Mastered

   How the fossil record supports evolution, the modern geological time scale, transitional fossils such as Tiktaalik, Archaeopteryx and early whales, Australian fossils from Lightning Ridge and Riversleigh, the megafauna, living fossils, and why the record has gaps.

   Open notes
5. 2E Evidence from living things Mastered

   Comparative anatomy (homologous and analogous structures, divergent and convergent evolution, the pentadactyl limb), vestigial structures, embryology and Haeckel's drawings, and molecular evidence from DNA and proteins such as cytochrome c.

   Open notes
6. 2F Evolution in action Mastered

   Evolution that scientists have measured: the Grants' finches on Daphne Major, rabbits and myxomatosis, insecticide and antibiotic resistance, cane toads and Australian snakes, human-caused selection, and a long-running bacteria experiment.

   Open notes
7. 2G Human evolution and the first Australians Mastered

   How humans are related to other apes, features of hominins such as walking upright, the hominin family tree from Sahelanthropus to Homo sapiens, recent discoveries including Homo naledi, Homo floresiensis, Homo luzonensis and Denisovans, interbreeding, and the arrival of First Nations people in Australia at least 65 000 years ago.

   Open notes
8. 2H Evolution review Mastered

   A summary of the whole Evolution chapter, key words, and a mixed test covering Darwin and Wallace, natural selection and allele frequency, speciation, fossil and living evidence, evolution happening today, and human evolution.

   Open notes