Evolution

Question 1

What is biodiversity?

Answer 1

A measure of the number of species on the planet.

Question 2

What defines species?

Answer 2

A group of organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring when homologous chromosomes can pair at meiosis.

Question 3

What are the two most biodiverse areas on the planet?

Answer 3

Coral Reef and Tropical rainforest.

Question 4

One example of the least biodiverse area on the planet

Answer 4

Desert

Question 5

What is the general rule of diversity?

Answer 5

More diversity of plant life means more diversity in animal life.

Question 6

What do fossil records show?

Answer 6

That most species are now extinct.

Question 7

What does bottleneck mean?

Answer 7

Where a number of species drop followed by rapid diversification

Question 8

Why does bottleneck happen?

Answer 8

species adapt to fill vacant niches

Question 9

What does Darwins Finches prove?

Answer 9

Adaptive radiation

Question 10

What is extinction

Answer 10

Loss of species, when species disappear.

Question 11

How did Darwin prove adapted radiation

Answer 11

On Galapagos Islands, Darwin realised that all the finches had different shaped beaks. Darwin said that all 14 species evolved from one comment ancestor. And that all the finches were able to colonise as there were no interspecific competition by other birds and no intraspecific competition because there was plenty of food.

Question 12

For speciation to occur (due to natural selection) what must there be?

Answer 12

• Variation brought by random mutations
• Overproduction of offspring
• Individuals must have a struggle for survival

Question 13

What will happen to those individuals best suited for survival?

Answer 13

Pass on their genes and continue over many generations. leading to different groups forming from the original species.

Question 14

What is adaptive radiation?

Answer 14

The emergence of several new species from a common ancestor introduced into an environment

Question 15

What is evolution?

Answer 15

Evolution is the process by which new species are formed from pre-existing ones over a very long period of time.

Question 16

What does taxonomy mean?

Answer 16

The scientific study of the diversity of living organisms.

Question 17

What does taxon mean?

Answer 17

A group of organisms sharing basic features

Question 18

What does classification mean?

Answer 18

The organisation of living organisms into groups according to their evolutionary relationships.

Question 19

What is the classification system and how are organisms classified?

Answer 19

The modern classification system is called the phylogenetic hierarchy and organisms are classified using a phylogenetic tree.

Question 20

What does hierarchy mean?

Answer 20

A large group of organisms split into smaller and smaller groups.

Question 21

What does phylogenetic mean?

Answer 21

The way organisms are grouped in the hierarchy reflects how the group of organisms are related.

Question 22

Who made the classification systen?

Answer 22

Carl Linnaeus in the 18th century

Question 23

What does the hierarchical system of classification include?

Answer 23

Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family Genus, Species

Question 24

What does the hierarchical system of classification include?

Answer 24

Kingdom - Animal, Plant, Fungi, Protoctista and prokaryote
Phylum - Arthropods, Chordates, Annelids etc
Class - Insects, Mammals, Fish, Amphibians etc
Order - A group of related families
Family - A group of similar genera
Genus - A group of closely related species
Species - a group of organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring because of homologous chromosomes that could be used during meiosis.

Question 25

What is the Human Classification?

Answer 25

``` Kingdom - Animalia Phylum - Chordata Class - Mammalia Order - Primates Family - Hominidae Genus - Homo Species - Sapiens ```

Question 26

What is the binomial naming system?

Answer 26

Many living organisms have a common name and often changes. Linnaeus' system of classification overcomes this problem as each organism is given a Latin name based on its genus and species e.g. humans are homo sapiens.

Question 27

3 reasons why classification is important

Answer 27

1 - To make the study of living organisms more manageable 2 - Support ideas of evolution 3 - Allow scientists to communicate with one another

Question 28

What is the biochemical method for comparing how species are related?

Answer 28

Gel Electrophoresis

Question 29

What is the five kingdom classification?

Answer 29

``` Prokaryotic - Unicellular, Bacteria/algae Protoctista - Eukaryotic Fungi - Eukaryotic Plants - Eukaryotic Animal - Eukaryotic ```

Question 30

How to prove common ancestry

Answer 30

- DNA base sequencing - the more similar the base sequence, the more closely related they are - Protein amino acid sequencing - The more similar the sequence the more closely related (use gel electrophoresis)

Question 31

Species of humans

Answer 31

``` Homo Habilis - between 2.4 - 1.4 mya - Height - 1.0-1.5m - brain capacity - 600-800 cc Homo Erectus - between 1.8 mya - 70000 ya - height - 1.3-1.5m - brain capacity - 750-1250 Homo Sapiens neanderthalensis - between 400000 - 40000 ya - height - 1.5-1.7m - brain capcity - 1200-1350 Homo sapiens - between 130000 - 60000 ya - height - 1.6 - 1.85 m - brain capacity - 1200 - 1700 cc ```

Question 32

What is the multiregional model?

Answer 32

This theory proves that the homo Erectus migrated out of Africa to Europe and Asia about 2 million years ago. Basically concluding that Homo Sapiens evolved directly from the Homo Erectus in different parts of the world.

Question 33

What is the Out of Africa model?

Answer 33

This model suggests that only the African descendants of H.Erectus gave rise to modern humans. All regional descendants, including the Neanderthals, became extinct without contributing to the gene pool of modern man.

Question 34

What is convergent evolution?

Answer 34

The tendency of evolutionarily unrelated organisms to acquire similar structures. E.g bat wing/insect wing

Question 35

What is divergent evolution?

Answer 35

Evolutionarily related organisms develop structures with a common origin into structures that have different functions e.g human hand/bird wing

Question 36

What are fossils

Answer 36

Preserved dead remains of plants and animals.

Question 37

What is paleontology?

Answer 37

The study of plants and animals of the geological past, as represented by their fossil remains.

Question 38

What is continental drift?

Answer 38

The movement of the earth's continents relative to each other by appearing to drift across the ocean bed

Question 39

What is phylogeny?

Answer 39

The evolutionary relationship between organisms

Question 40

What is a gene pool?

Answer 40

The total number of alleles in a particular population in a particular time.