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'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection'.

Gregor Mendel was an Augustinian monk and scientist who is known as the father of modern genetics for his study of the inheritance of traits in pea plants.

Convergent evolution is the process where organisms not closely related independently evolve similar traits as a result of having to adapt to similar environments or ecological niches.

A molecular clock is a technique in molecular evolution that uses mutation rates in DNA to estimate the time at which two species diverged from a common ancestor.

Disruptive selection is a type of natural selection that simultaneously favors individuals at both extremes of the distribution of a trait over the intermediate phenotypes.

A principle stating that allele and genotype frequencies in a population will remain constant from generation to generation in the absence of other evolutionary influences.

Vestigial structures are anatomical features or behaviors that no longer have a function within a species, indicating historical ancestry.

A theory that explains the origin of eukaryotic cells from prokaryotes, whereby mitochondria and chloroplasts originated as separate unicellular organisms that were taken inside a host cell.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck was a French naturalist who proposed that life evolves through the inheritance of acquired characteristics, a concept now known as Lamarckism.

Directional selection occurs when an environmental change favours a new phenotype and thus shifts the overall appearance of the species.

Allopatric speciation occurs when populations of a species are geographically isolated from one another by physical barriers, eventually leading to the creation of new species.

Ernst Mayr was a renowned biologist and one of the leading evolutionary biologists of the 20th century who made substantial contributions to species concepts and the theory of evolution.

An individual is homozygous for a gene when they inherit the same alleles for that gene from both parents.

Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace independently proposed the theory of natural selection.

A sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental events or human activities leading to a significant genetic drift.

A theory in evolutionary biology stating that species are generally stable, unchanged over long periods of time, and that significant evolutionary change occurs only in short periods of rapid change.

Sympatric speciation is the evolution of a new species from a surviving ancestral species while both continue to inhabit the same geographic region.

An individual is heterozygous for a gene when they inherit two different alleles for that gene, one from each parent.

The 'RNA world' hypothesis proposes that RNA, rather than DNA, was the first genetic material and self-replicating molecules, leading to the first life-forms on Earth.

Genetic recombination is the process by which a strand of DNA is broken and then joined to the end of a different DNA molecule, resulting in new allele combinations in offspring.

Stabilizing selection is a type of natural selection that favors the intermediate variants of a trait and selects against extreme phenotypes.

The idea that individuals better adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce.

The Miller-Urey experiment demonstrated that organic compounds could be synthesized from inorganic precursors under conditions resembling those of the early Earth.

A process where the frequency of alleles in a population changes over generations due to random sampling.

An allele is a variant form of a gene that can result in different traits.

Archaeopteryx is a transitional fossil showing both avian and reptilian features and serves as evidence for the evolution of birds from dinosaurs.

A phenotype is the composite of an organism's observable characteristics or traits, resulting from the interaction of its genotype with the environment.

Theodosius Dobzhansky was a prominent geneticist and evolutionary biologist who stated 'Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution'.

Adaptive radiation is a process in which organisms diversify rapidly into a multitude of new forms, particularly when a change in the environment makes new resources available.