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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 macroevolutionary change include the appearance of major new features of organisms and the impact of mass extinctions on he diversity of life and its subsequent recover. |
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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 a radioactive isotope to decay. |
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| The division of Earth's history into time periods, grouped into three eons - Archaean, Proterozoic, and Pharerozoic - 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 together. |
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| A process in which a unicellular organisms (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 sequnce 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 the 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 communities. |
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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 organisms 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 animals, plants and fungi by controlling the developmental fate of groups of cells. |
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