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| Evolutionary change above the species level, including the origin of a new group of organisms or a shift in the broad pattern of evolutionary change over a long period of time. Examples of ___ include the appearance of major new features of organisms and the impact of mass extinctions on the diversity of life and its subsequent recovery |
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| a collection of abiotically produced molecules surrounded by a membrane or membrane-like structure |
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| an RNA molecule that functions as an enzyme, catalyzing reactions during RNA splicing. |
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| a method for determining the absolute ages of rocks and fossils, based on the half-life of radioactive isotopes. |
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| the amount of time it takes for 50% of a sample of radioactive isotope to decay. |
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| The division of Earth's history into time periods, groups=ed into three eons--Archaean, Proterozoic, and Phanerozoic--and further subdivided into eras, periods and epochs. |
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| layered rock that results from the activities of prokaryotes that bind thin films of sediment togehter |
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| a process in which a unicellular organism (the "host") engulfs another cell, which lives within the host cell and ultimately becomes an organelle in the host cell; also refers to the hypothesis that mitochondria and plastids were formerly small prokaryotes that began living within larger cells |
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| a hypothesis for the origin of eukaryotes consisting of a sequence of endosymbiotic events in which mitochondria, chloroplasts, and perhaps other cellular structures were derived from small prokaryotes that had been engulfed by larger cells. |
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| a relatively brief time in geologic history when large, hard-bodied forms of animals with most of the major body plans known today appeared in the fossil record. This burst of evolutionary change occurred about 535-525 million years ago. |
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| The slow movement of the continental plates across Earth's surface |
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| the supercontinent that formed near the end of the Paleozoic era, when plate movements brought all the landmasses of Earth together. |
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| period of time when global environmental changes lead to the elimination of a large number of species throughout Earth. |
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| period of evolutionary change in which groups of organisms form many new species whose adaptations allow them to fill vacant ecological roles in their communites |
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| Evolutionary change in the timing or rate of an organism's development |
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| The retention in an adult organism of the juvenile features of its evolutionary ancestors |
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| Any of the master regulatory genes that control placement and spatial organization of body parts in the developmental fate of groups of cells. |
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