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Question 1

Monophyletic

Answer 1

A taxon in which all species share a common ancestor, & all species derived from that common ancestor

Question 2

Polyphyletic

Answer 2

Derivation of a taxon from two or more ancestral sources

Question 3

Paraphyletic

Answer 3

A taxon in which all species share a common ancestor, but not all species derived from that common ancestor are included

Question 4

Taxonomy vs systematics

Answer 4

» Taxonomy: The science of naming, describing and classifying organisms and includes all plants, animals and microorganisms of the world.
» Systematics: The science that studies the distinctive characteristics of species and how they are related to other species through time. Field of biology that studies and tries to establish phylogenies (= evolutionary histories)

Question 5

Plesiomorphy

Answer 5

Near ancestral type

Question 6

Symplesiomorphy

Answer 6

Shared ancestral type

Question 7

Apomorphy

Answer 7

Away from ancestral

Question 8

Process (microevolution)

Answer 8

to do with how the process occurs

Question 9

History (macroevolution)

Answer 9

process created history with many unique events

Question 10

hutton

Answer 10

• Uniformitarianism
  – Present is the key to the past
• Gradualism
  – Features of the earth result from slow accumulation of events
  such as those we see occurring now

Question 11

Thomas Malthus

Answer 11

populations grow
exponentially while agriculture grows
linearly; therefore, populations will always
outstrip their resource base.

Question 12

Lamarck

Answer 12

Theory of Evolution (1809)
* Organisms continually change to become better
adapted to their environment
* A feature acquired during an individual’s lifetime could be passed on to offspring

Question 13

Cuvier

Answer 13

Strongly opposed the idea of evolution
* Catastrophism
* Only natural catastrophes, such as the “Great
Flood”, could account for the form and nature of
a 6,000-year-old Earth

Question 14

Lyell

Answer 14

The earth is very old
* Made Hutton’s ideas accessible to a wide
audience, including Darwin
* Advocated uniformitarianism and
gradualism

Question 15

darwin observations

Answer 15

Similarity (unity) & dissimilarity (diversity)
* Redundant forms from place to place
* common ancestry
* Variation on a basic form within a region
* Due to descent with modification

Question 16

wallace

Answer 16

‘Father of biogeography’
* Independently proposed theory of
evolution due to natural selection

Question 17

clade

Answer 17

A clade is a grouping that
includes a common ancestor
and all the descendants (living
and extinct) of that ancestor.

Question 18

homology

Answer 18

Similarities due to shared ancestry
» Do not necessarily have the same function
» Sharing of homologies among species indicates that
they have evolved from a common ancestor that
possessed the same feature

Question 19

analogy

Answer 19

Similarity between structures that is NOT the result of
a common evolutionary origin
» Phenotypic similarity that is due NOT to common
descent but to similarity of function

Question 20

Convergence

Answer 20

Similar appearance NOT due to common ancestry
* Could be analogous but not homologous

Question 21

Parallelism

Answer 21

Independent evolution of similar structure from common
ancestor
* Raptorial feet from perching feet in owls and falcons

Question 22

parallelism example

Answer 22

thorny devil vs horned lizard

Question 23

ancestral

Answer 23

plesiomorphic

Question 24

derived

Answer 24

apomorphic

Question 25

Homoplasy

Answer 25

describes a character state similarity not due to shared
descent (for example, produced by convergent evolution or
evolutionary reversal). Closely related to the idea of analogy but more
general because it does not include similarity in function.

Question 26

Maximum parsimony

Answer 26

The preferred tree is the one with the least homoplasies
(fewest reversals + convergences)
Often called the shortest tree: it is the tree with the fewest changes
of character state

Question 27

Cladogenesis

Answer 27

Branching of a lineage
into two or more
descendant lines
* Evolution that results in
the splitting of a lineage

Question 28

Anagenesis

Answer 28

Evolutionary change of
various characteristics in
each descendant
* Evolution within a lineage

Question 29

Pseudoextinction:

Answer 29

A phenomenon in which a
taxon changes by anagenesis over evolutionary time,
until it is so different from the ancestor that it is
reclassified as a new taxon.

Question 30

dating phylogenic trees

Answer 30

-Radiometric dating
-Molecular clock

Question 31

Radiometric Dating

Answer 31

“Absolute” ages of geological events: based mostly on radioactive decay
that changes unstable radioactive atoms to stable daughter atoms;
occurs at a constant rate; hence each element has a specific half life.Only igneous rocks can be dated; hence, fossilbearing sedimentary rocks must be bracketed
between younger & older igneous rocks

Question 32

molecular clock

Answer 32

Most DNA consists of non-coding parts of the molecule
* Even within coding regions, changes at 3rd base positions of
each codon are mostly silent substitutions (they don’t change
the amino acid)
* If non-coding and silent changes predominate, then most
mutations are not expressed in the phenotype
* Not being expressed, they are not subject to selection
* They, thus, may accumulate at a stochastic (=non-deterministic)
rate

Question 33

Rates of Molecular Evolution

Answer 33

D = 2rt

Question 34

Evidence for evolution

Answer 34

1. Homology
2. Embryological similarities
3. Vestigial characters
4. Convergence
5. Suboptimal design
6. Geographic distribution
7. Intermediate forms

Question 35

Types of evidence:

Answer 35

• Phylogenetic – DNA sequences
• Morphological – shared
  homologies
• Geographic – where and when
  traits evolve

Question 36

mosaic evolution

Answer 36

Different phenotypic characters evolve at different rates

Question 37

Allometry

Answer 37

How physical
traits change with body size
(scaling relationship
between traits and boody
size).

Question 38

Allometric growth

Answer 38

– differential rate of growth of
different parts of an organism during its ontogeny

Question 39

Heterochrony

Answer 39

To describe cases in which an ontogenetic sequence of events did not
recapitulate the phylogenetic sequence
Evolutionary change in phenotype caused by an alteration of
timing of developmental events (Futuyma, 2013)
* Change in the relative timing of developmental events in one
species relative to an ancestral species

Question 40

PAEDOMORPHOSIS

Answer 40

: conditions in which a
larva becomes sexually mature without
attaining adult body form.

Question 41

NEOTENY

Answer 41

May result from a slowing of somatic
development relative to sexual development

Question 42

PROGENESIS

Answer 42

Less commonly from an acceleration of
sexual development relative to somatic
development

Question 43

Paedomorph Advantage Hypothesis

Answer 43

Neoteny may have
been favoured to remain in relatively safe aquatic habitat,
rather than undergoing metamorphosis & facing a new suite
of terrestrial predators.

Question 44

Adaptive radiation

Answer 44

diversification of a group of organisms into forms filling
different ecological niches; diversification of a species or single ancestral
type into several forms that are each adaptively specialized to a specific
environmental niche.

Question 45

• Species flock

Answer 45

A group of closely related species all living in the same
ecosystem
* Should be applied to species assemblage of monophyletic
origin
* Evolved within the same ecosystem from a single ancestral
species by repeated speciation events
* One or more synapomorphies in all members of the
assemblage which is/are absent in relatives outside the flock

Question 46

adaptive radiation

Answer 46

evolutionary lineage that has undergone exceptionally rapid
diversification into a variety of lifestyles or ecological niches.