Evolution 101 Table of Contents
1. An introduction to evolution
Evolution briefly defined and explained
2. The history of life: looking at the patterns
How does evolution lead to the tree of life?

The family tree

Understanding phylogenies

Building the tree

Homologies and analogies

Using the tree for classification

Adding time to the tree

How we know what happened when

Important events in the history of life
3. Mechanisms: the processes of evolution
How does evolution work?

Descent with modification

Mechanisms of change

Genetic variation

Mutations

The causes of mutations

Gene flow

Sex and genetic shuffling

Development

Genetic drift

Natural selection

What about fitness?

Sexual selection

Artificial selection

Adaptation

Misconceptions about natural selection

Coevolution
4. Microevolution
How does evolution work on a small scale?

Defining microevolution

Detecting microevolutionary change

Mechanisms of microevolution
5. Speciation
What are species anyway, and how do new ones evolve?

Defining a species

Defining speciation

Causes of speciation

Reproductive isolation

Evidence for speciation

Cospeciation
6. Macroevolution
How does evolution work on a grand scale?

What is macroevolution?

Patterns in macroevolution
7. The big issues
What are some of the big questions that evolutionary biologists are
trying to answer?

The pace of evolution

Diversity in clades

Looking at complexity

Trends in evolution
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