Class Midterm 1 Flashcards
What are Phenotypes
Structure and behaviour of individual organisms
What determines phenotypes
Genetics and environment (environment = what organism is exposed to)
What does protein do
Preform functions in cells, function depends on protein structure
What is the Central Dogma of Biology
DNA to RNA to Proteins
What determines protein structure
Sequence of AA
How is DNA made
A string of nucleotides packed into chromosomes
What are genes
Sequences of DNA that code to produce RNA and/or protien
What are alleles
Different versions of info encoded at a given gene
What causes mutations
Cell replication
What is evolution
Process that results in changes in the proportion of heritable traits within a population from 1 gen to the next
What drives evolution (4)
1) Natural selection
2) Mutation
3) Genetic drift
4) Gene flow
What did Peter and Rosemary Grant do
Research medium ground finches on Galapagos islands
Evolution
The process that results in changes in the proportion of heritable traits
within populations from one generation to the next.
Genetic Drift
Changes in allele frequencies that happen as a result of sampling error (random chance)
What are the impacts of genetic drift
Decreases the total amount of allelic variation in a population over
time
Can cause deleterious alleles to increase in frequency
Founder effect
When a subset from a larger population
leave and ‘found’ a new population
How does founder effect impact population
Can be dramatic if the founding population is particularly small - only bring small amount of alleles
Bottleneck
When a population shrinks dramatically,
and differential survival/reproduction
does not depend on phenotypic traits
What can cause bottlenecks
Think of events that ‘equalize’ chance of
survival
- Floods, fires, etc
Gene flow
The flow of alleles between two or more
populations (of the same species)
How does gene flow effect populations
Gene flow keeps populations genetically
similar to one another
- This can have negative or positive impacts on the fitness of the populations involved