Study Guide to Evolution: 127 Flashcards from Darwin to the Neanderthals

In evolution, the ideas are simple and the vocabulary is not: natural selection fits in one sentence, but exams ask about genetic hitchhiking, the two-fold cost of sex and Homo heidelbergensis. The Evolution deck on Flip It (deck code RJ6768, 127 cards) covers that full range, from Darwin's four observable facts to the Denisovans, in short cards you can actually memorize.

Sample cards from the deck

Everything the 127 cards cover

• Heredity and variation: genotype vs phenotype, DNA, gene, chromosome, locus, alleles, mutation, gene duplication (the four human light-sensing genes), de novo gene birth, exon shuffling, gene families, protein domains, MC1R and piglet coloration, the peppered moth, inherited vs heritable traits.
• Sex and recombination: independent assortment, homologous recombination, two-fold cost of sex, Red Queen hypothesis.
• Gene flow: migration, pollen transfer, hybrids, horizontal gene transfer, antibiotic resistance in bacteria, bdelloid rotifers, the origin of mitochondria and chloroplasts, viruses crossing domains.
• Beyond DNA: epigenetic inheritance (methylation, RNA interference, prions), niche construction, developmental plasticity, canalisation, symbiogenesis.
• Selection: fitness, fecundity, teleonomy, directional, disruptive and stabilising selection, levels of selection (genes to species), transposons, group selection, assortative mating, genetic hitchhiking.
• Drift and neutrality: genetic drift, population size and fixation, neutral and nearly neutral theory, mutation pressure.
• Big picture: modern synthesis, neo-Darwinism, fossil record, speciation, anagenesis, extinction, phylogenetic trees, Odum's ecosystem definition, ecological niche.
• Human evolution (about 30 cards): hominid vs hominin, Ardipithecus ramidus, Australopithecus, bipedalism, Homo habilis, H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis, Neanderthals, Denisovans, H. floresiensis, H. luzonensis, encephalization, Oldowan tools, behavioral modernity, Out of Africa vs multiregional hypothesis, mitochondrial Eve, the Toba bottleneck, the grandmother hypothesis, the descended larynx, ongoing selection for lactose tolerance.

Study tips for this deck

Learn the three selection types as one graph. Sketch a bell curve once, then for each card say where the arrow points: shift the mean (directional), push both tails (disruptive), squeeze toward the middle (stabilising, the deck's height example). The definitions become descriptions of the picture.

Build a timeline for the hominin cards. The deck gives dates for almost every species: Ardipithecus 4.4 Ma, Australopithecus 4 to 2 Ma, Oldowan tools 2.6 Ma, H. habilis 2.8 to 1.4 Ma, H. erectus 1.8 Ma to 108 ka, H. heidelbergensis 800 to 300 ka, Neanderthals 400 to 28 ka, Out of Africa 100 to 50 ka, behavioral modernity 50 ka. Write them on one line and review the cards in date order; the fossil names stop being interchangeable once they have positions.

Where to find the deck

Sign in at flip-it.app and open Evolution (deck code RJ6768) from the library. For the molecular side, the Genetics: molecular basis of DNA, RNA and protein synthesis deck pairs well with this one, and the Microbiology study guide covers the bacteria behind horizontal gene transfer.