Adaptation

Question 0

Adaptive

Answer 0

Trait that serves a function

Question 1

Adaptation

Answer 1

A trait that evolved by natural selection for a particular function, because it increases fitness, from an ancestor that did not have that trait

Question 2

Nonadaptive

Answer 2

Traits that serve no function

Question 3

Pre adaptation

Answer 3

A trait is a pre adaptation for a new function if it already existed in an ancestor and did not originally evolve to serve that function

Question 4

Three elements of a hypothesis regarding adaptation

Answer 4

1. Trait
2. Function
3. Taxonomic group

Question 5

Observational study

Answer 5

Study of natural variation in a trait within a species and how it relates to fitness

Question 6

Experimental study

Answer 6

Manipulating the trait within a species to study how variation I’m the trait, and only that trait, relates to fitness

Question 7

Comparative method

Answer 7

Study natural variation in a trait across multiple species and how that relates to different selection pressures across species

Question 8

Problem with comparative method and solution

Answer 8

Data points aren’t independent of multiple species inherited traits from common ancestors
Solution: use independent contrasts to connect sister species, drag them to the origin, delete lines and increase group size or data points to show relation (go from absolute group size to change on group size and become separate evolutionary events)

Question 9

Independent contrasts

Answer 9

Method used when comparative method doesn’t work, changes absolute group size to change in group size to better compare separate evolutionary events

Question 10

Factors that impede evolution of adaptation

Answer 10

Costs/trade offs, not every trait is an adaptation, differences between populations/species aren’t always adaptive

Question 11

Why have traits that are nonadaptive?

Answer 11

1. Lost the function that it served in an ancestor (vestigial trait)
2. Caused by random genetic drift (neutral trait)
3. Associated with another trait that increases fitness (pleiotropy and hitch hiking)

Question 12

Pleiotropy

Answer 12

Single gene affects multiple traits, trait is a side-effect of gene that has another function

Question 13

Hitch hiking

Answer 13

Genetic linkage to a beneficial trait, trait is caused by a gene that is linked to another beneficial gene