Exam 1 (Evolution)

Question 1

Evolution

Answer 1

progressive change of organisms as they descend from ancestral species-is a fact

Question 2

modern synthesis

Answer 2

• Darwin’s theory of natural selection, combined with other mechanisms of evolution
• explanation for phenomena in such diverse fields as paleontology and developmental biology, medicine and psychology.

Question 3

Questions that Evolutionary Biology helps answer

Answer 3

–Distribution and abundance of species

-Diversity of Life
Procession of Life (or Tree of Life)

• Fit of Form and Function
• What of Humans?

Question 4

Darwin and Wallace’s theory of evolution

Answer 4

by natural selection was the first plausible, widely-accepted mechanism for evolutionary change.

Question 5

Clinical significance of evolutionary biology to medicine (HIV)

Answer 5

• that two separate lineages of this retrovirus passed into the human population from African Apes in the mid 20th century.
• enabled us to develop a therapy for HIV
• “triple therapy” HIV treatment is an example of evolutionary medicine.
• Antibiotic resistance since the 20th century

Question 6

What produces adaptation?

Answer 6

natural selection is the only mechanism capable of producing adaptation.

Question 7

taxonomy

Answer 7

branch of biology concerned with naming and classifying living things.

Question 8

Carolus Linnaeus

Answer 8

• He developed the two part system of binomial nomenclature we use today.
• His genera were clustered into increasingly broader categories; families, classes, phyla, and kingdom.
• Although he did not believe in evolution by descent, this pattern clearly suggests some mechanism by which different forms of life are related to each other as a series of diverging, heirarchial, branches.

Question 9

Malthus

Answer 9

• published “An Essay on the Principle of Population” in 1798.
• people tend to have more children than can possibly survive, and human populations have historically been kept in check by famine, starvation, and disease

Question 10

Hutton

Answer 10

-Hutton proposed that it was possible to explain geological land formations by processes that are currently in operation, such as erosion and sedimentation.

Question 11

gradualism

Answer 11

process that happen over a really long period of time erosion of streams and sediment on side of river deltas

Question 12

Charles lyell

Answer 12

uniformitarianism-the idea that geological processes in operation now operated similarly in the past, at about the same rate.

Question 13

Jean Baptiste de Lamark

Answer 13

developed the first comprehensive model of evolution.

Question 14

The Voyage of the Beagle

Answer 14

• inspiration for Darwin’s theory of natural selection from voyage on HMS Beagle in 1831
• Species diversity, especially in the Galapagos islands (most of the species only live there and no where else in the world)

Question 15

Origin of Species makes this argument

Answer 15

• All organisms produce more offspring than can possibly survive
• All organisms vary for a wide variety of different attributes and features-they also vary in reproductive success: some have more offspring than others.
• Some variation is heritable.
• Some of this variation must influence reproductive success
• Given that the above are true…desirable characteristics will thus be preferentially passed to offspring

Question 16

Some of the original evidence for evolution

Answer 16

Embryology
Vestigial and Homologous Structures
Biogeography
The Fossil Record

Question 17

Embryology

Answer 17

Closely related species go through similar stages of development, although the adults may not resemble each other very closely.

Question 18

Vestigial Structures

Answer 18

Many species retain structures that only make sense in light of their ancestry.
These structures are typically reduced and nonfunctional,

Question 19

Homologous Structures

Answer 19

structures that are similar in their fundamental layout and construction, although they may serve very different purposes

Question 20

Biogeography

Answer 20

The distribution of living plants and animals suggests that organisms diversify into the ecological niches available to them-and when geography blocks dispersal, similar adaptations occur in unrelated taxa occupying the same type of habitat.

Question 21

DDT resistance in mosquitoes

Answer 21

Indiscriminate spraying led to the rapid evolution of pesticide resistance. Five Anopheles species were resistant by 1956 and 38 by 1968.
1) Chemical adaptation: enzymes evolve that break down the pesticide.

2) Behavioral adaptation: They evolved to move from inner, sprayed walls to outer, unsprayed walls. They evolved sensitivity and avoid the pesticide.

Question 22

Adaptation examples

Answer 22

• Tyrannosaur vs. Spiniosaur

- Strepsitera- adapted and specialized to fit between the terga of bees and wasps.

Question 23

Galapagos finches

Answer 23

• 13 finch species
• Offspring of various parents have been counted, and the shifting relationships between traits such as beak size and body size vs. fitness have been documented

-drought struck yr 2, they didn’t mate or produce eggs
because the plants didnt produce seeds

• specifically Caltrop (need at least a 11mm beak to open)
• yr 3 population had decimated, evolved by natural selection, beak size (longer and deeper)