Topic 10 - Species and Taxonomy

Question 1

What is a species?

Answer 1

• Group of similar organisms.
• Occupy the same ecological niche.
• Can interbreed to produce living, fertile offspring.

Question 2

What is courtship?

Answer 2

• Allows animals to recognise members of their own species (species recognition and identification).
• Identify a mate capable of breeding.
• Indicates fittest/healthiest male.
• More likely to pass on genes/alleles.
• Synchronise mating for maximum probability of sperm meeting an ovum.

Question 3

Suggest how species recognition occurs between different species of fireflies.

Answer 3

1) Different species have different patterns of flashes.
2) Females will recognise and respond by flashing back.

Question 4

What is taxonomy (artificial)?

Answer 4

Focuses on the physical similarities between different species. ANALOGOUS CHARACTERISTICS

Question 5

What is phylogeny (phylogenetic)?

Answer 5

Classified by evolutionary relationships, so that every group shares a common ancestor. HOMOLOGOUS FEATURES

Question 6

What are the taxonomic ranks in order from the highest?

Answer 6

1) Domain (pro/eukaryote)
2) Kingdom
3) Phylum
4) Class
5) Order
6) Family
7) Genus
8) Species

(Daft King Penguins Can Only Find Green Socks).

Question 7

What is meant by genetic diversity?

Answer 7

Number of different alleles of each gene.

Question 8

What is a hierarchial classification?

Answer 8

Larger groups containing smaller groups.

Question 9

What are 3 ways scientists can classify species of being in different genera?

Answer 9

• Do not produce fertile offspring when interbreeding.
• Fossil record.
• Evolutionary differences.

Question 10

Why might populations show low levels of genetic diversity?

Answer 10

• Small population size.
• Interbreeding.
• Population might’ve started with small number of individuals.

Question 11

What is a habitat?

Answer 11

A place where a community of organisms normally lives.

Question 12

What is a community?

Answer 12

All the populations of different organisms interacting in a particular place at the same time.W

Question 13

What is an ecosystem?

Answer 13

All the living and non-living components of a specified area.

Question 14

What is biodiversity?

Answer 14

The number and variety of living organisms in a particular area.

Question 15

What is species diversity?

Answer 15

Number of different species and number of individuals of those species within a community.

Question 16

What is genetic diversity?

Answer 16

Differences in the DNA/genes possessed by the individuals in any one species.

Question 17

What is ecosystem diversity?

Answer 17

The range of different habitats within a specified area.

Question 18

Farmers clear tropical forest and grow crops instead. How does this cause the diversity of insects to decrease?

Answer 18

1) Insects will lose their habitat and niches.
2) Will start to die as needs are not met.
3) Fewer will survive.
4) Using fertilisers on crops encourages crop species to out-compete other plant species.

Question 19

What is conservation?

Answer 19

Concept of preservation and maintenance. To maintain diversity and maintain organisms’ habitats/ecosystems.

Question 20

What is a monoculture?

Answer 20

Cultivation of single species over a large area. High yield, simplifies sowing and harvesting, reduces labour costs.

Question 21

Pesticides are used to destroy crop pests, but they can also affect other animals. How?

Answer 21

• Bioaccumulation: Pesticides pass through the food chain if the insect is consumed after ingesting pesticide.
• Food source killed by pesticide.
• Insufficient food for survival.

Question 22

We expect species that are more closely related to have more similarities in their DNA. Why?

Answer 22

1) During evolution, one species gives rise to another. The DNA of the new species will initially be very similar.
2) Due to mutations, the sequences of nucleotide bases in DNA changes.
3) Over time, the new species will accumulate more differences in its DNA.
4) Closely related species will not have many differences.

Question 23

Why does comparing the base sequence of a gene provide more information than comparing the amino acid sequence for which the gene codes?

Answer 23

• DNA code is degenerate.
• More bases than amino acids.

Question 24

What is interspecific variation?

Answer 24

Variation between (different) species.

Question 25

What is intraspecific variation?

Answer 25

Variation within a species (different alleles).

Question 26

What is the difference between a population and a sample?

Answer 26

Population: ALL members of a specified group.
Sample: PART of a population used to describe the characteristics of a WHOLE population.

Question 27

What are the two ways in which measurements of variation might not be representative of the population?

Answer 27

• Sampling bias
• Chance (you just happened to pick a certain group of something e.g tall people).

Question 28

What is standard deviation?

Answer 28

A calculation to find the spread of measurements about the mean of the normal distribution. If the SD is large, there is a wide variation around the mean, so the data may not be very reliable. Allows statistical analysis.

Question 29

What does it mean if the standard deviation error bars do not overlap?

Answer 29

There IS a statistical significance between the mean of two or more sets of data and the difference is NOT due to chance.