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Classification and Evolution Flashcards

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1
Q

What is Linnean classification?

A

Classifying organisms by shared characteristics

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2
Q

What are the groups in Linnean classification?

A
  • Kingdom
  • Phylum
  • Class
  • Order
  • Family
  • Genus
  • Species
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3
Q

How did Carl Linnaeus classify organisms?

A

He revolutionised modern taxonomy, by implementing a standardised binomial (genus and species) naming system for animal and plant species

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4
Q

How did Robert Whittaker classify organisms?

A

First to propose the five kingdom taxonomic classification of the world’s biota

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5
Q

How did Carl Woese classify organisms?

A

Defined archea as a new domain of life in 1977 by phylogenetic taxonomy

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6
Q

What are the three reasons for classifying organisms?

A
  • Identify species
  • Predict the characteristics of unidentified new species
  • Discover evolutionary links and common ancestors
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7
Q

What are the rules for a taxon’s name?

A
  • A binomial name in Latin
  • Printed in italics or underlined when handwritten
  • Upper case letter begins first name and a lower case letter begins the species name
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8
Q

What is a species?

A

A group of organisms that are able to reproduce to produce fertile offspring

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9
Q

What are the five kingdoms?

A

1) Prokaryotae (bacteria)
2) Protoctista
3) Fungi
4) Plantae
5) Animalia

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10
Q

What are kingdoms?

A

A taxonomic rank

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11
Q

What are the features of a prokaryote?

A
  • Lacks a nuclear membrane enclosed nucleus
  • No membrane bound organelles
  • Nutrients absorbed through cell surface membrane
  • Asexual and reproduce by binary fission
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12
Q

What is a protist?

A

Any eukaryotic organism that is not an animal, plant or fungus

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13
Q

What are the features of protists?

A
  • Unicellular (mainly)
  • Have a nucleus and other membrane bound organelles
  • Some are sessile, some are mobile
  • Nutrients are absorbed by photosynthesis as AUTOTROPHS or by ingestion of other organisms as HETEROTROPHS
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14
Q

WHt are the features of fungi?

A
  • Nucleus and other membrane bound organelles
  • Cell wall made from CHITIN
  • No chloroplasts or chlorophyll
  • Sessile
  • Body called a MYCELIUM made from threads or HYPHAE
  • nutrients acquired by absorption so are SAPROPHYTIC (some are parastitic)
  • Have GLYOCGEN RESERVES
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15
Q

What are the features of plants?

A
  • Nucleus and other membrane bound organelles
  • Cell wall made from CELLULOSE
  • All contain chlorophyll
  • Most are sessile, some are motile (cilia and flagella)
  • Nutrients acquired by photosynthesis so are AUTOTROPHIC
  • have STARCH RESERVES
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16
Q

What are the features of animals?

A
  • Multicellular
  • Nucleus and other membrane bound organelles
  • No cell walls or chloroplasts or chlorophyll
  • Motile by using muscle tissue, cilia or flagella
  • Nutrient acquired by ingestion so are HETEROTROPHIC
  • Have GLYCOGEN RESERVES
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17
Q

How have classification systems changed?

A

-Modern classification systems combine observable features with evolutionary history or relationships of organisms due to the progression of science helping provide evidence

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18
Q

WHat is the evidence for evolutionary history and relationships?

A
  • Genetics (DNA and RNA sequences)

- Comparative biochemistry (difference between proteins like haemoglobin in the great apes)

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19
Q

What are the three domains?

A
  • Bacteria
  • Archaea
  • Eukarya
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20
Q

How were organisms classified into domains?

A

1) Base sequences in RNA
2) Size of ribosomes
3) Cell membrane lipid structure
4) Sensitivity to antibiotics

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21
Q

How does the three domain change prokaryotes?

A

Splits them up into Bacteria/Eubacteria and Archea

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22
Q

What are the characteristics of bacteria? (domain)

A
  • 70S ribosomes

- RNA polymerase has 5 subunits

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23
Q

What are the characteristics of archaea? (domain)

A
  • 70S ribosomes but closer to eukaryotic ribosomes in base sequence
  • RNA polymerase varies between 8 and 10 subunits
  • Ancient bacteria
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24
Q

What are the characteristics of eukarya? (domain)

A
  • 80S ribosomes

- RNA polymerase has 12 subunits

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25
Q

How does Carl Woese’s domain system affect the five kingdoms?

A

Changes it into 6 kingdoms as Prokayotae would be split into Bacteria and Archea

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26
Q

What is phylogeny?

A

Study of evolutionary relationships between organisms

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27
Q

Where does the evidence for phylogeny come from?

A

1) DNA and RNA base sequences
2) Amino acid sequences in proteins
3) The fossil record

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28
Q

What does a phylogenetic tree show?

A

Shows the evolutionary relationships between organisms and their common ancestor

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29
Q

What are the rules for phylogenetic trees?

A
  • Common ancestor at the bottom
  • Most recent species at the top of the branches
  • Nodes show common ancestors for terminal taxa that share a node
  • Degree of relationship established by counting the nodes that separate two taxa
  • Branches that end before the top of the tree are extinct
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30
Q

What are the advantages of phylogenetic trees?

A
  • Phylogeny has allowed modern taxonomy to resolve disputed classifications
  • Phylogenetic trees are continuous and do no require discrete taxa
  • Hierarchical taxonomy can lend itself to the wrong comparisons between taxa of the same rank
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31
Q

What is interspecific variation?

A

Differences between individuals of different species

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32
Q

What is intraspecific variation?

A

Differences between individuals of the same species

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33
Q

What are the two causes of variation?

A

GENETIC VARIATION
differences between individuals genetic material
ENVIRONMENTAL VARIATION
differences between individuals environment

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34
Q

What is genetic variation primarily caused by?

A

Mutations

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35
Q

What are the six causes of genetic variation?

A
  • Mutations
  • Alleles
  • Meiosis
  • Sexual reproduction
  • Random fertilisation
  • Genetic drift
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36
Q

What is a mutation?

A

Alteration in the base sequence of the genome of an organism

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37
Q

What are the four classes of mutations?

A

1) Spontaneous mutations
2) Mutations due to replication errors of DNA
3) Errors introduced during DNA repair
4) Induced mutations caused by mutagens

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38
Q

What is a gene?

A

Sequence of nucleotides that codes for one or more polypeptide

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39
Q

What is an allele?

A

A version of the same gene at the same place on a homologous chromosome, arising in different phenotypes

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40
Q

How are alleles produced?

A

Mutations

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41
Q

How can meiosis cause genetic variation?

A

Independent Assortment and Crossing Over

42
Q

How does sexual reproduction cause genetic variation?

A

An individual can only pass on half of its genes to its offspring and the offspring is genetically different to its parents

43
Q

How does genetic drift affect genetic variation?

A

It can cause alleles to disappear completely and thereby reduce genetic variation. It can also cause rare alleles to become much more frequent and even become fixed

44
Q

What is genetic drift?

A

The change in frequency of an allele in a population due to random sampling of organisms that reproduce

45
Q

How can bacteria create genetic variation?

A

As bacteria only carry out asexual reproduction, the offspring inherit the full set of genes from their singular parent. Therefore, only mutations are a form of creating genetic variation.

46
Q

How do bacteria increase genetic variation?

A 
1) CONJUGATION
DNA transfer by direct contact
2)TRANSFORMATION
uptake of DNA from the environment
3)TRANSDUCTION
DNA transfer from a virus
47
Q

What is the concept of heritability?

A

It estimates the degree of variation in an organism’s characteristic that is due to genetic variation e.g. human blood group is 100% heritable, whereas heritability of human scars is 0% (entirely environmental)

48
Q

What are the features of discontinuous variation?

A
  • Measurements can only fall into certain values
  • No ‘in between’ values
  • Variation is caused by genetic factors
  • Usually controlled by one gene, with few alleles
  • Normally represented by bar chart or pie chart
49
Q

What are the features of continuous variation?

A
  • Measurements can take any value
  • Continuum of values
  • Variation caused by genetic AND environmental factors
  • Controlled by many genes and many alleles
  • Represented by frequency tables and a histogram
50
Q

What is a bar chart?

A
  • Graph that represents categorical data

- Shows comparisons among discrete categories

51
Q

What kind of histograms does continuous variation give?

A

A bell-shaped graph

52
Q

What does a bell-shaped graph show?

A

A normal distribution curve

53
Q

What are the features of a normal distribution curve?

A
  • Mean, mode and median are the same
  • Bell shape is symmetrical about the mean
  • Half of values are below the mean and half are above
  • More values are close to the mean
54
Q

What is standard deviation the measure of?

A

The spread of data around the mean

55
Q

When is the student’s t-test used?

A

When comparing data that has:

  • Two data sets
  • Sets have the same type of data
  • Sets have enough data to allow a reliable mean to be calculated
  • Sets show a normal distribution
  • Sets have the same standard deviation
56
Q

When do you use the paired student’s t-test?

A

When the measurements come from the same individual

57
Q

When do you use the unpaired student’s t-test?

A

When the measurements come from different individuals

58
Q

What is the Null Hypothesis?

A

A prediction that there is no significant difference between the two data sets and that any difference between the two sets are due to chance alone

59
Q

What are the degrees of freedom for the paired student’s t-test?

A

n1 + n2 -2 (n is number of values in data set)

60
Q

What are the degrees of freedom for the unpaired student’s t-test?

A

n-1 (n is number of values in data set)

61
Q

What is the significance level for a study in biology

A

P=0.05

62
Q

How do you know whether to accept the critical value?

A
  • If your value is smaller than the critical value at P=0.05 and the correct degrees of freedom, than the null hypothesis is accepted
  • If the value exceeds the critical value, the null hypothesis is rejected and the alternative hypothesis is accepted
63
Q

What is correlation?

A

Any statistical relationship, whether causal or not, between two random variables

64
Q

What is causality?

A

When one event contributes to the production of an event

65
Q

What is Spearman’s Rank Correlation Coefficient used for?

A

Used to see if the correlation between two variables is statistically significant

66
Q

What are the values for Spearman’s Rank?

A

+1 is a perfect positive correlation
-1 is a perfect negative correlation
The nearer a value to 0, the weaker the correlation

67
Q

How to know whether a value shows a STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT correlation?

A
  • If the value is closer to 1 than the critical value at P=0.05 and the correct degrees of freedom then then the null hypothesis is rejected
  • Therefore, there is a statistically significant correlation between two ‘events’
68
Q

What are the three meanings of adaptation?

A

1) Evolutionary process that fits organisms to their environment, enhancing their evolutionary fitness
2) The state reached by a population during evolution
3) A phenotypic trait which has a functional role in each in each individual organism that allow it to survive and reproduce

69
Q

What is anatomical adaptation?

A

Physical features, both internal and external

70
Q

What are some examples of anatomical adaptation?

A
  • Basking shark has a greatly enlarged mouth and highly developed gill rakers to allow it to effectively filter feed
  • Great Spotted Woodpecker has a foot with two front facing toes and two back facing ones to help it perch on difficult trees
71
Q

What is behavioural adaptation?

A

The way an organism behaves

72
Q

What is innate behavioural adaptation?

A

Behavioural adaptations which are performed without prior experience or learning

73
Q

What are some examples of innate behavioural adaptation?

A
  • Newly hatched sea turtles will instinctively towards the ocean
  • Honeybees communicate by dancing in the direction of a food source
74
Q

What is learned behavioural adaptation?

A

Behavioural adaptations which are performed after prior experience or learning

75
Q

What are some examples of learned behavioural adaptation?

A
  • Prairie dogs give alarm calls when predators approach

- Imprinting of young geese to follow their mothers

76
Q

What is physiological adaptation?

A

Processes that take place inside an organism

77
Q

What are some examples of physiological adaptation?

A
  • Thermoregulation
  • Homeostasis
  • Hormonal Communication
  • Tropisms
  • Dormancy
  • Transpiration
78
Q

What are the 3 extant subdivisions of the class of animals, Mammalia?

A

1) Placental mammals
2) Marsupial mammals
3) Egg laying mammals

79
Q

What are the features of placental mammals?

A
  • Foetus carried in uterus of mother to a late stage of development
  • Have a sufficiently wide opening at bottom of pelvis to allow birth of a large baby
80
Q

What are the features of marsupial mammals?

A
  • Endemic to Australasia and the Americas
  • Foetus is carried in uterus until an early stage of development
  • Give birth to less developed young who are kept for a period in the mother’s pouch
81
Q

What are the links between placental and marsupial mammals?

A
  • Marsupial mammals of Australia and the placental mammals of the Americas show convergent evolution by natural selection
  • They show convergent evolution because of evolving by natural selection in similar climates, environmental factors and having similar economic niches
82
Q

What are the similarities between the marsupial mole (S AUS) and the placental mole (E US)?

A
  • Both are adapted for a burrowing way of life
  • Marsupial mole has large, shovel like forepaws and silky fur for easy movement and lacks complete eyes due to little need for them
  • Placental mole has large, hairless, spade shaped forefeet adapted for digging, silky fur, and minute, degenerative eyes are hidden in the fur
83
Q

What are the similarities between the Aloe and Agave plant?

A

Agave
-Flowers once at end of life
-Upwards, spiky, grey green leaves with a prickly margin and a heavy spike at the tip
Aloe:
-Thick and fleshy, green to grey green leaves
-Margin of leaf is serrated and has small white teeth

84
Q

What is mimicry?

A

Evolved resemblance between an organism and another object, often an organisms of another species.

85
Q

What are some examples of mimicry?

A
  • Many insects like the hoverfly and the wasp beetle are mimics of stinging wasps
  • The fly orchid flower is a mimic of a female beetle to induce the male beetle to copulate with it and so pollinate the flower
86
Q

What is the process for evolution by natural selection?

A
  1. There is variation in characteristics that are caused by differences in genes
  2. Organisms who’s characteristics are best suited for a selection pressure such as predation, competition or disease have an increased chance of surviving and reproducing
  3. Successful organisms pass the allele for the advantageous characteristic onto their offspring
  4. Process is repeated for every generation and overtime the allele increases in frequency in the population’s gene pool
  5. Eventually, all the individuals in a population will have the advantageous characteristic, this is evolution
87
Q

What is MRSA?

A
  • Methicillin resistant staphylococcus auereus
  • It has evolved to become highly resistant to many antibiotics
  • This resistance has either developed through natural selection or acquired through horizontal gene transfer
  • Due to its resistant nature, infections caused by MRSA is hard to treat
  • Common in hospitals, prisons and nursing homes
88
Q

Why do bacteria evolve quicker than other kingdoms?

A

Because they reproduce at an extremely rapid rate, so any mutations introduced can quickly develop a resistant population.

89
Q

Peppered moths example:

A
  • Due to the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s, the population of dark peppered moths increased from being almost unknown before
  • This is because the air pollution caused the trees to become dark due to soot (selection pressure)
  • This meant that white moths were easily spotted on the dark trees and eaten by birds, while the dark moths camouflaged
  • The dark moths survived and reproduced, passing on the allele for dark colours
  • In addition to this, the rapid decline of the white moth population lead to 95% of peppered moths being the dark kind in just 80 years
  • Later when the pollution was reduced, and trees become lighter again, the white moths became the dominant form as the reverse process occurred
90
Q

Australian sheep blowfly example:

A
  • Blowfly causes the condition ‘fly strike’ in sheep
  • Female fly finds an ideal sheep with either an open wound or build up urine/faeces in the wool in which she lays her eggs
  • The maggots then grow while eating the living flesh of the sheep and secrete ammonia, thus poisoning the sheep
  • Diazinon was developed to try and kill the sheep blowfly
  • However, within just 6 years, the population of sheep blowfly had evolved by natural selection, a high resistance to diazinon
  • Rapid evolution occurred because the sheep blowfly already had resistance to a related organophosphate called malathion
  • This phenomenon is called pre-adaptation
91
Q

What are the problems with the fossil record?

A
  • It is incomplete
  • 95% of all fossils we posses are of animals that once lived underwater
  • Less than one species in 10,000 makes it into the fossil record
92
Q

How does comparative anatomy provide evidence for natural selection?

A

-Comparative anatomy is the study of similarities and difference in the anatomy of different species
-The two main pieces of evidence provided are:
HOMOLOGOUS STRUCTURES
ANALOGOUS STRUCTURES

93
Q

What are homologous structures and how do they show evolution?

A
  • HOMOLOGOUS structures are similar structures in DIFFERENT SPECIES
  • The species have evolved by DIVERGENT evolution from a common ANCESTOR
  • They may or may not perform the same function
  • An example is the pentadactyl limb seen in humans, dogs, birds and whales
94
Q

What are analogous structures and how do they show evolution?

A
  • ANALOGOUS structures are similar structures in different organisms
  • These species have evolved by CONVERGENT evolution
  • They have evolved from a similar ENVIRONMENT but not from a recent common ancestor
95
Q

How does comparative biochemistry provide evidence for evolution?

A
  1. All known extant organisms are based on the SAME BIOCHEMICAL PROCESSES (transcription/translation)
  2. The GENETIC CODE is the same for almost every organism
  3. ATP is used as an energy currency by all extant life
  4. DNA SEQUENCES show the degree of relatedness between organisms
  5. The sequence of the 16S RIBOSOMAL RNA GENE allowed the three domain system
  6. The variance of the protein CYTOCHROME C in living cells
96
Q

How does 16S ribosomal RNA provide evidence for evolution?

A
  • 16S ribosomal RNA is the RNA component of the 30S subunit of a prokaryotic ribosome
  • The base sequences of these genes in different prokaryotes have been used to construct phylogenetic trees due to the the slow rate of evolution in these genes
  • The 16S rRNA can be used as a reliable molecular clock
97
Q

How does Cytochrome C provide evidence for evolution?

A
  • Cytochrome C is a small haem-protein found within the inner membrane of the mitochondrion
  • It is highly conserved, differing only by a few amino acids in all the eukaryotes
  • Therefore it has been used to develop phylogenetic trees
  • Both humans and chimpanzees share the identical molecule, while rhesus monkeys share all but one of the amino acids
98
Q

How does evolutionary or comparative embryology provide evidence for evolution?

A
  1. All animals embryos look very similar when in early development and develop in a similar way, evidence for a common ancestor for animals
  2. All vertebrate animals have gill-like slits in early development
  3. Animal embryos have a yolk-sak
  4. Hox genes are a group of relate genes that specify regions of the body plan of an embryo, they are ancient genes and are highly conserved
99
Q

What is a fossil?

A

Any preserved remains, impression or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age

100
Q

What evidence did Darwin collect on his voyage?

A
  • Set off in Dec 1831
  • In the Galapagos islands, Darwin observed that the mockingbirds differed from island to island
  • He also drew finches and noted how their beaks and claws were different for each island
  • He linked that the beak depended on the type of food they ate and a more suitable beak would allow the finch to survive and reproduce, having offspring with the advantageous characteristic.

Biology (33 decks)

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