POPULATION DYNAMICS OF INDIGO BUNTINGS AND THE EVOLUTION OF AVIAN POLYGYNY

Mate choice—the decision about whom to mate with—is a type of natural selection, since animals must reproduce to pass down their genes. Mate choice is also called intersexual selection because the behavior occurs between the sexes.

Overview

Conservation of declining population focuses on ways of detecting, diagnosing, and halting a population decline. The approach uses methods to prevent populations from going extinct.

Speciation describes the formation of one or more new species from one or sometimes multiple original species. The resulting species are discrete from the parent species, and barriers to reproduction will typically exist. There are two primary mechanisms, speciation with and without geographic isolation—allopatric and sympatric speciation, respectively.

Speciation is the evolutionary process resulting in the formation of new, distinct species—groups of reproductively isolated populations.

Flowers are the reproductive, seed-producing structures of angiosperms. Typically, flowers consist of sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels. Sepals and petals are the vegetative flower organs. Stamens and carpels are the reproductive organs.