D4 Flashcards
What is a selection pressure?
An environmental factor that can influence the success of a population
What is fitness?
Ability to pass on genes
What is sexual selection?
A process similar to natural selection in which some organisms that can attract a mate to reproduce with more successfully, leading to an increase in this allele frequency in the population overtime
What is antibiotic resistance?
Ability of bacteria to resist impacts of antibiotics
How did Darwin’s theory lead to a paradigm shift in understanding?
Revealed that evolution is driven only by heritable traits. Shift from Lamarck’s theory of Inheritance of desirable acquired traits
What are causes of genetic variation (that drive natural selection)?
Mutation (new alleles)
Meiosis inc. independent assortment and crossing over (new allele combinations)
Sexual reproduction (new allele combinations)
What role does carrying capacity play in natural selection?
Creates a limit and thus, competition for survival. This means only the best adapted can survive, which leads to natural selection
How do abiotic factors impact natural selection?
Often act as a selection pressure
Explain how sexual selection has played a role in the evolution of birds of paradise
There was variation in the brightness of feathers among individuals.
There is competition to find a mate, which is a selection pressure
Males with big bright feathers advertise their wellbeing, better attracting mates. This leads to this variation of more colourful males being reproducing more often, thus having more offspring. This causes this variation to increase in frequency ovetime
What is the experimental work of John Endler with guppies in Trinidad and Tobago?
In the 1970s, there was an investigation into whether predators influenced the colouration of guppies. In the absence of predators, sexual selection lead to more brightly coloured guppies; whereas with predators, colourness increased
What are the steps of natural selection?
There is genetic variation among individuals.
There is a selection pressure, so there is competition to survive in that environment.
Some variations are better suited + more likely to increase survival.
Due to increased survival, individuals with that variation have more offspring.
Because trait is genetic, variation increases in frequency overtime.
What are the steps in sexual selection?
There is genetic variation among individuals.
There is a selection pressure to find a mate, thus there is competition to find mates in that population.
Some variations are better suited and more likely to increase attraction of mates. Due to increased attraction of mates, individuals with that variation have more offspring. Because the trait is genetic, variation increases in frequency overtime.
How does antibiotic resistance occur, an example of natural selection?
Some bacteria have an allele that means antibiotic do not impact them. When the selection pressure of antibiotic are introduced, bacteria are now struggling to survive. Sensitive bacteria die. Resistant bacteria now have an advantage so they survive. Surviving resistant bacteria rapidly reproduce, due to no competition with other bacteria. Offspring are also resistant and thus, the colony quickly becomes resistant
What is a gene pool?
All the genes and their different alleles present in a population.
What is allele frequency?
Proportion of total alleles that each allele occupies
How does geographic isolation impact allele frequencies?
Natural selection can favour different alleles in different locations
What makes neo-Darwinism a specific subset of understanding?
Addition of DNA and alleles, and how it is specifically inherited
How is artificial selection similiar to natural selection?
Both lead to a change allele frequencies due to selection pressure
How is artificial selection different to natural selection?
Selective pressure is the active breeding of traits
How does neo-Darwinism define evolution?
Change in allele frequencies by natural selection
What is the most common distribution of a trait?
Normal distribution
What is directional selection?
A mode of natural selection in which one extreme is favoured, causing the allele frequency to continuously shift in one direction
Don’t lose extremes, just shifted towards one extreme
What is stabilising selection?
A mode of natural selection where the average of a trait is the best suited. Extremes pose risk.
What is disruptive selection?
A mode of natural selection where both extremes are favoured/have an advantage, thus population shifts in either direction.
E.g. colour
What is genetic equilibrium?
A state in which allele frequencies remain the same (in reference to one trait/gene)
What are the five conditions for genetic equilibrium?
Large population size
No immigration or emigration
No selective pressures/favoured phenotype
Random mating
No generation of new alleles by mutation
What is the purpose of the Hardy Weinberg equation?
To assess whether observed genotype frequencies are different to what they would be if genetic equilibrium occurred
What are the two equations used in Hardy Weinberg calculations?
p + q = 1
p2 + 2pq + q2 = 1
What are the steps involving Hardy Weinberg calculations?
- Calculate q2 (aa) = # recessive phenotype / ppln size
- Calculate q (a)
- Calculate p (A)
- Calculate p2 (AA) and 2pq (Aa)
What does q represent in Hardy Weinberg calculations?
Recessive allele
What is sustainability?
When an ecosystem can fully support itself without outside influences?
What are tipping points?
The point where so much damage has occurred that the ecosystem cannot sustain itself and collapses
What is required for long-term ecosystem sustainability?
Sufficient energy supply
Nutrient recycling
Genetic diversity in individual species
Response to climate change / abiotic factors remain in zone of tolerance
How can an ecosystem has a sufficient supply of energy?
Enough producers, balance between trophic levels
How can a sufficient supply of energy to the ecosystem be disrupted?
Loss of producers (deforestation)
Invasive species (trophic imbalances)
Extinction of keystone species (trophic imbalances i.e. eutrophication)
How can nutrient recycling be disrupted?
Poaching and logging i.e. organisms do not stay in ecosytem until death
Erosion that washes away topsoil
How can a high level of genetic diversity be disrupted?”
Competition from invasive species can lead to a decrease in population size, an increase in inbreeding and (ultimately) decreased genetic diversityy
How can abiotic factors remaining in zone of tolerance be disrupted?
Climate change happens further than species can adjust
How has deforestation affected the Amazon Rainforest?
Before deforestation, the Amazon Rainforest regulates its own water cycle (due to large amounts of plant life that transpire, cause clouds and then precipitation). When deforestation removes plants, the reduction in transpiration disrupts the water cycle. This causes temperatures to rise and rainfall to decrease, leading to droughts and fires, which causes this positive feedback loop
What is the tipping point for the Amazon?
When it can no longer be a forest//is a grassland
What is a mesocosm?
Small experimental area set up as an ecological experiment. (Usually sealed containers with necessities to function as a self-contained sustainable mini ecosystem)?
Why is a sealed glass mesocosm better than an open tank?
Better representation of a sustainable ecosystem, allows matter to be recycled and thus, show self-sufficiency
Why are aquatic mesocosms more successful than terrestrial ones?
Requires less components to build, recycling of amtter
What is a Winogradsky column?
A microbial mesocosm, with different layers with differing abiotic conditions
What is included in a mesocosm?
Pebbles at bottom (for drainge, to prevent overmoist soil)
Activated charcoal (prevent bacterial overgrowth, extra H20 drainage)
Soil (room for growth of roots)
At least one plant (for photosynthesis to create energy)
Spray of water
What is a keystone species?
Any type of organism that has a disproportionate impact on the structural of its ecological community
What is a trophic cascade?
When the removal of a top predator destabilises the trophic levels below it, and disrupts the balance of the ecosystem
What is soil erosion?
Loss of the topsoil (that is the most nutrient rich and has impacts on the rest of the ecosystem)
What is leaching?
When rain/irrigation water dissolves chemicals and carries them away from the roots of plants
What are agrochemicals?
Chemicals used in agriculture