AEBI 212 midterm 1 Flashcards
1
Q
True or false: humans have been selectively breeding plants and animals for millennia
A
True
2
Q
Do leaf cutter ants eat the leaves?
A
No, they feed the leaves to the fungi, and they eat the fungi
3
Q
What is a scientific theory?
A
an explanation of an aspect of the natural world and universe that can be repeatedly tested and corroborated in accordance with the scientific method
4
Q
What is a hypothesis?
A
proposed explanation for a phenomenon, which can be tested and most importantly falsified
5
Q
Can we prove a hypothesis?
A
No, we only demonstrate alternatives are false
6
Q
What is an experiment?
A
a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis can be observational or manipulative
7
Q
What is an observation?
A
an act or insistance of noticing or perceiving in the natural sciences.
8
Q
What are multiple observations?
A
Data
9
Q
What are the steps of induction?
A
observation, pattern recognition, theory
10
Q
What are the steps of deduction?
A
Theory, hypothesis, observation,(possibly rejection)
11
Q
In scientific natural history, what do we use to get answers?
A
induction and deduction (cycle)
12
Q
Who developed the concept of Scala Naturae?
A
Aristotle
13
Q
Name the steps of Scala Naturae in order.
A
Mineral, fire, plant, animal, man
14
Q
True or false: according to Scala naturae species and geology are constantly changing
A
False they are static and unchanging
15
Q
Which religion adopted the concept of scala naturae?
A
Christianity ( angels, god above man)
16
Q
Name 2 historical figures of Islam.
A
Nasir al-din al Tusi
Ibn Khaldun
17
Q
What characterizes the age of discovery (1500-1600)?
A
European exploration, expansion and colonization
18
Q
Who developed the scientific method?
A
Francis Bacon
19
Q
What are some of the popular discoveries made during the scientific revolution?
A
Heliocentrism, Gravity, magnetism, mathematics, astronomy
20
Q
Who was the first to recognize we are made of cells?
A
Hooke
21
Q
Who developed the taxonomic system?
A
Linnaeus
22
Q
What theories did Buffon propose?
A
The earth is older than the bible suggested
species migrate and colonize new environments, and they change once arriving
23
Q
What theory did Cuvier propose?
A
Catastrophism (everything dies and restarts)
24
Q
Who said: Just as a watch is too complex to occur naturally, so too must organisms be too complex to have evolved
A
Paley
25
Who postulated that species evolved and diversified by inheriting acquired traits?
Lamarck
26
When was the Origin of species published?
1859
27
What was so revolutionary about Darwin's theory?
Heritable traits are acted upon by natural selection resulting in differential survival and reproduction within populations
evolution via common descent
28
What does natural selection require to act?
Variation
Differential reproductive success
inheritance
29
What did William Dalinger do?
microbiologist, first controlled evolution experiment
30
What is natural selection?
The evolutionary process by which beneficial inherited traits increase in frequency over time in a population because of increased survival and reproductive success of individuals carrying those heritable traits
31
What is a trait?
any observable characteristic of organism
32
What does Lamarckism rely on?
Transformational processes changing species
33
What does Darwinism rely on?
Variational Processes changing species ( artificial selection sorts traits we want and natural selection sorts for survival)
34
What is fitness?
A measure of reproductive success relative to the average reproductive success in a population
35
What is an adaptation?
A trait that increases an organism's fitness and which is the result of the process of natural selection for its current primary function
36
What is an exaptation?
A trait the served one function today but which evolved from a trait that served a different function in the past
37
What do phylogenies represent?
timing and pattern of evolution according to the character data studied
38
Every phylogeny that we produce study and analyze can be described as what?
a hypothesis
39
What is the early method for grouping and arranging taxa?
Phenetics (arranging by similarity)
40
who developed the concept of cladistics?
Hennig
41
What is a dendrogram?
graphical tree diagram
42
What is a taxon?
the organism at the tips of a phylogeny
43
What is a branch?
arm of a phylogeny designating a lineage
44
What is a node?
Branching point on a phylogenetic tree, representing an ancestral population that subsequently divided into multiple descendant populations
45
what is a root?
basal lineage on a phylogenetic tree
46
True or false: branches can be rotated freely around nodes
True
47
What is an outgroup?
distantly related group with a known evolutionary relationship to the taxon being studied
48
What is an ingroup?
The taxa of interest in a phylogenetic study
49
What is a sister group?
Two taxa that are immediately derived from the same ancestral node on a phylogenetic tree
50
What is a polytomy?
A node on a phylogenetic tree that has more than two branches arising from it.
51
What does a polytomy represent?
uncertainty about phylogenetic relationships
52
What is a clade?
a taxonomic group including an ancestor and all of its descendants
53
What is an unrooted tree?
A phylogenetic tree in which the root and thus the direction of time is unspecified
54
what is a rooted tree?
A phylogenetic tree in which the root is indicated and thus the direction of time is specified
55
What is a cladogram?
A phylogenetic tree in which cladistic relationships are represented but in which branch lengths do not indicate the degree of evolutionary divergence
56
What is a Chronogram?
A phylogenetic tree on which absolute time is denoted. Some ancestral nodes often calibrated using fossil taxa
57
What is a phylogram?
A phylogenetic tree in which the length of each branch represents the amount of evolutionary change that has occurred along that branch.
58
If you have a polytomy, can you refer to the unresolved lineages as Sister groups?
no sister groups is only for describing 2 taxa
59
How many phylogenies are possible for 3 taxa?
1 possible unrooted tree
60
How many phylogenies are possible for 5 taxa?
15 possible unrooted trees
61
How do we know where to root a tree?
Previous knowledge of relationships between ingroup and closest outgroup
experimentation and hypothesis testing using traits
62
What is homology?
a trait that is similar in two species because they were inherited from a shared common ancestor
63
True or false: establishing homology is not critical for reconstructing sound phylogenies
false
64
What is homoplasy?
A trait that is similar in two species because of convergent evolution, not inherited from a shared common ancestor
65
What is necessary for tracking divergent evolution?
Homology
66
What is evidence of convergent evolution?
homoplasy
67
What is parsimony?
the simplest solution with the fewest character changes required is most likely
68
Name 4 phylogenetic methods?
Parsimony, phenetics(distance methods), maximum likelihood, Bayesian inference
69
what is a crown group?
the last common ancestor of a living group of organisms and all its descendants
70
True or false: a crown group is always paraphyletic
false its monophyletic
71
What is a stem group?
entirely of extinct organisms that display some but not all the morphological features of their closest crown group
72
True or false: a stem group is always paraphyletic
True
73
what is Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer known for?
found a living fossil ( Coelacanth)
74
Where was the Dorudon fossil discovered?
USA
75
What confirms the relationship between whales and Artiodactyla( pigs cows deer)
morphological synapomorphies (ankle bones)
76
What are vestigial traits?
characters that have no known current function. but appear to have been functional in the past
77
Why do unnecessary traits persist if natural selection is an active agent?
1. trait is not costly
2. trait is costly, and natural selection is acting against it, but we
are observing it in the middle of the process before it is fully gone.
3. A trait is costly, but there is no ready path by which natural
selection can totally get rid of it.
4. A vestigial trait is intricately linked to another positively-reinforced
trait, and the loss of one would lose both.
5. The trait isn't actually vestigial, we just haven't worked out what its
function is yet.
78
What can phylogeny tell us?
Phylogenies can tell us how organisms evolved.
They can tell us when organisms evolved.
79
What is the study of where organisms are found and how and when they got there?
Biogeography
80
What are large scale patterns in biodiversity often attributed to?
geological causes
81
What are small-scale patterns in biodiversity more likely attributed to?
biological causes
82
What is Alfred Wegener known for?
CONTINENTS WERE ONE BIG CONTINENT
83
When did geologists discover tectonic plates?
1950s
84
name 5 dispersal mechanisms
land bridges
oceanic currents
air currents
flight
phoresy (hitch-hiking)
85
Who is considered to be the Founder of genetics?
Gregor Mendel
86
What are Mendel's laws of inheritance?
Law of segregation :1 copy is passed down to offspring
Law of independent assortment: The specific trait passed down to
the next generation for one character is independent of the trait
passed down for a different character.
87
What is modern synthesis?
Now with a genetic framework upon which to build on Darwin's
concept of Natural Selection, evolutionary biologists united Darwin
and Mendel's work into an over-arching concept of evolution
88
What is the use of DNA for phylogeny?
Establish homology
analysis
map character transitions
89
What is DNA wrapped around?
Histones
90
what do twisted and clumped histones form?
chromosomes
91
How many chromosomes do humans have?
46 (23 pairs)
92
Human gametes are what? (ploidy)
haploid
93
what is a genome?
all of the DNA code available in your body
94
What is a genotype?
Unique set of genes (different alleles)
95
What is a phenotype?
the physical manifestation of unique genotype in its environment
96
What does natural selection act on?
Phenotype and thus changes the genome indirectly
97
What is the C-value paradox?
a lot of repeated stuff in our genomes
98
What is G-value Paradox?
The number of protein-coding genes does not scale
with the complexity of the organism.
99
Where does DNA polymerase attach to DNA?
Promoter site
100
U replaces what?
T
101
True or False: All transcribed RNA goes on to be translated into protein
False
102
What is ribosomal RNA used for?
components of RNA
103
What is transfer RNA used for?
move amino acids around
104
What is micro-RNA used for?
gene regulation
105
Which are useful introns or exons?
exons
106
What translates RNA into amino acids?
Ribosomes
107
what are protein made of?
amino acids
108
What does homozygous mean?
alleles are the same
109
What does heterozygous mean?
alleles are diferent
110
What is one of the key aspects enabling Natural selection to work?
Variation in alleles
111
What is population genetics?
Measuring and tracking the frequency and fitness of different alleles
across large groups of organisms
112
True or False: Most proteins regulate the production of other proteins
True
113
What does non-coding DNA do?
gene expression regulation
physical aligning genes and their transcription factors around histones
biochemical stabilization
