Course Material

Question 1

two controversial ideas of evolution

Answer 1

concept of a changing universe, a phenomenon with no purpose

Question 2

early ideas about evolution

Answer 2

earth formed according to the laws of physics and chemistry

life emerged as distinct types (not true)

paleontology provided evidence that life changed

Question 3

fossils

Answer 3

fill in the gaps of extinct forms we don’t see today

Question 4

co-discoverers f natural selection

Answer 4

Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace

Question 5

darwin

Answer 5

voyage on the H.M.S Beagle (1831-1836)

layed the foundation for plant and animal studies

wrote 25 books

Question 6

importance of islands in evolution

Answer 6

their isolation means many of the living organisms found on islands are unique to them (prevents migration)

Question 7

preservation of favored races in the struggle for life

Answer 7

all organisms have descended with modification from common ancestors

Question 8

founder of taxonomy

Answer 8

carl linnaeus

Question 9

hierarchical system of classification in order from largest to smallest

Answer 9

Kingdom-Phyla-class-order-family-genera-species

Question 10

taxa at the tips of phylogenetic trees

Answer 10

are all alive and have been evolving for the same amount of time

Question 11

Monophyletic group

Answer 11

includes an ancestor and all of its descendants (the type we want)

Question 12

paraphyletic group

Answer 12

includes ancestor and some descendants

Question 13

polyphyletic group

Answer 13

includes two convergent descendants bot not their common ancestor

Question 14

phylogenetic trees

Answer 14

hypotheses about relationships between taxa

can be done at any taxonomic level

are constantly reevaluated

Question 15

homoplasy

Answer 15

common problem (only 4 character states so the probability of separate lineages independently arriving at the same character can be high)

when species have the same mutation but were independent events

convergent evolution

Question 16

significance of genes that differ in rate of evolution

Answer 16

slowly evovlving genes are useful for distantly related species

rapid evolving genes are useful for closely related lineages

Question 17

parsimony

Answer 17

simplest explanation is most likely the right one (use when making a tree)

Question 18

using traits (DNA) in a tree

Answer 18

traits that all species share are not useful for inferring phylogenies

traits that only one species has are also not useful

most useful characters are shared derived traits

Question 19

homology

Answer 19

traits that are shared because they are inherited from a common ancestor (homologous)

Question 20

synapomorphies

Answer 20

shared derived traits that evolves in the common ancestor

Question 21

sources of genetic variation

Answer 21

mutation (ultimate source), recombination, gene flow, and hybridization

Question 22

somatic mutations

Answer 22

affect cells in the body of an organism: not heritable

Question 23

ger-line mutations

Answer 23

affects gamettes: heritable and relevant to evolution

Question 24

rates of mutations

Answer 24

depends on type of mutation, the organism and it varies among genes

Question 25

most common mutation

Answer 25

point

Question 26

point mutation rate in humans

Answer 26

12 mutations/ billion base pairs
3.2 billion bp in haploid genome
36 mutations from each gam

Question 27

most mutations are… because…

Answer 27

mildly bad

genomes work very well, billions of years of evolutions

more ways to mess things up than to fix them

Question 28

possible gamete combinations in humans

Answer 28

8 million (2^23), meiosis generates variation (independent assortment)

Question 29

where does majority of genetic variation in a populations come from

Answer 29

sexual reproduction

Question 30

evolution

Answer 30

change in a llele frequencies through time