Chapter 8 Flashcards
Darwin’s observations while traveling on the Beagle helped him develop which theory?
that species change over time
The phenotype of an organism is:
its physical characteristics
Why is it that creationism can never be accepted as a scientific explanation of the origin of life?
Because the ideas of creationism cannot be tested through experiment and observation.
Disruptive selection occurs when:
individuals with extreme values of a trait have greater fitness than individuals with intermediate values of the trait.
Which of the following is NOT a mechanism of genetic change in populations?
a) biogeography b) migration c) mutation d) genetic drift e) natural selection
biogeography
A population’s environment sometimes changes too quickly for natural selection to adapt the individuals in the population to the environment. In these situations:
the individuals’ instincts can no longer be trusted to elicit behavior that maximizes reproductive success.
Name some sources of evidence demonstrating the occurrence of evolution:
biogeography, molecular biology, comparative anatomy/embryology, the fossil record
Which of the following best describes the difference between artificial and natural selection?
Natural selection can act without the input of humans; artificial selection requires some human input.
While on the voyage of the HMS Beagle, Darwin:
nurtured his love of studying nature, exploring plant and animal diversity, and collecting fossils.
Evolution is define as:
a change in the frequency of alleles in a population over time.
Evolution only occurs via:
natural selection, genetic drift, migration, or mutation.
Most mutations:
are random, meaning they are unrelated to how useful or harmful they might be to the organism in which they occur.
Which of the following choices is NOT a useful characteristic of cytochrome C for sequence comparisons across different species?
a) It is large enough to contain useful phylogenetic information.
b) It is highly conserved.
c) It has the same function across species.
d) It is useful for establishing the evolutionary relationships between all kingdoms of life.
e) It is not likely to be subject to lateral transfer.
It is useful for establishing the evolutionary relationships between all kingdoms of life.
Two types of polygamy are:
polygyny and polyandry
The average time to death from starvation in a fruit fly is about 20 hours. Selecting for increased starvation resistance in fruit flies:
can produce populations in which the average time to death from starvation is 160 hours
While on the Beagle, Darwin was intrigued by glyptodonts because:
glyptodont fossils resembled a species that currently existed, but were much, much larger
Genetic drift will have the greatest effects for populations:
that are very small
The 14 species of Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos Islands mainly differ in:
bill size
Human birth weight is a classic example of the results of:
stabilizing selection
For a population to evolve through natural selection:
its members must possess inheritable variation
Which of the following is NOT an important reason that natural selection does not lead to perfect organisms?
Artificial selection, that is, selection by humans for improvement of animal and plants for human use, is the only way that perfect organisms can evolve.
Based on the information given, which of the organisms described below most likely has the lowest fitness?
a sterile organism that lives twice as long as the average longevity in its population
Which of the following statements about the relationship between humans and evolution is FALSE?
Because evolutionary processes are operating today just as they have been since life first appeared on Earth, humans have not influenced evolutionary processes
The amount of time that has passed since two species last shared a common ancestor:
is revealed by the degree of similarity in sections of their DNA
