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Year 1 Biology Ellie M > Domestication of Animals and Crops > Flashcards

Domestication of Animals and Crops Flashcards

1
Q

The four great discoveries of Prehistory

A
  1. Tool
  2. The control of fire
  3. The invention of the wheel
  4. The invention of agriculture
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2
Q

What size groups did hunter-gatherers live in?

A

30-60 individuals

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3
Q

When was the shift from hunter-gatherer to farmers?

A

11,000 BC to 1,500 BC

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4
Q

Cause of shift to agricultural lifestyle

A
  • Decline in the availability of wild foods
  • Depletion of wild game so less rewarding, easier to gather grain
  • Increased technology for collecting, processing and storing wild foods
  • Adopt food production or die at the hands of those who have
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5
Q

What is the paradox when populations turned to agriculture?

A

The height and health of people generally declined

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6
Q

What is a crop?

A

Any organism that is harvested by another

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7
Q

What is a cultivated crop?

A

Plants or animals grown via human interference

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8
Q

What is a domesticated organism?

A

Plant or animal brought into the household. Humans often interfere with the reproductive process leading to fundamental genetic changes - these domesticated organisms are different to the wild type

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9
Q

What did the transition from wild to cultivated to domesticated involve?

A
  1. Gigantic characteristics
  2. A reduction/increase in fertility
  3. A loss of survival characteristics
  4. Loss of harmful substances
  5. Loss of protective structures
  6. Loss of delayed germination
  7. Early and simultaneous ripening
  8. Changes in organ shape
  9. Increase in rate of self-pollination
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10
Q

What is the FOXP2 gene?

A
  • The first language gene discovered
  • Winged helix/forkhead class of transcription factors
  • Expressed in multiple tissues and has high level of expression in fetal brain
  • This gene allows humans to use such elaborate communication
  • Highly conserved, only 3 amino acid differences between humans and mice
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11
Q

What is the nucleotide diversity between humans?

A

0.1-0.4%

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12
Q

What is the nucleotide diversity between humans and chimpanzees?

A

1.2%

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13
Q

What is the gene MYH16?

A

One of several myosin heavy chain genes involved in skeletal muscle formation. The mRNA of the gene is expressed specifically in jaw muscles. High levels of the protein are found in the jaw of primates but not humans. During human evolution, there was a 2 base our deletion leading to frameshift, resulting in a non-functional gene, which is why humans have a much smaller jaw than primates

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14
Q

Where did pig domestication occur?

A

Central Europe, Italy, Northern India and South East Asia, possibly all independently

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15
Q

Features of wild boar

A

48kg
Fat area of 12.6 cm squared
Aggressive and difficult to farm

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16
Q

Features of meishan pig

A

82kg
Fat area of 24.4 cm squared
Domesticated pig bred to provide lots of useful fats for human use

17
Q

Features of pietran pig

A

117 kg
Fat area of 15.9 cm squared
Domesticated pig bred for lean meat

18
Q

What is the IGF2 gene?

A

Expressed in prenatal meishan, pietran and wild boar, and helps to form skeletal muscle. In meishan pigs and wild boar, it is only expressed weakly after birth, but in pietran pigs it continues to be strongly expressed after birth. This is due to a silences that prevents further expression of the gene mutating so it can no longer bind to the gene

19
Q

What is polyploidy?

A

A major mechanism in plant evolution, involving the generation of a chromosome number which is a multiple of some ancestral set - the organism becomes tetraploid rather than diploid

20
Q

How does polyploidy occur?

A

I’ve either abnormal meiotic (non-disjunction) or mitotic division

21
Q

What is the benefit of tetraploid wheat?

A

It has two grains per floret rather than one so has much higher yield

22
Q

What was the development of the rachis in the domestication of wheat?

A

The spiklets of wild (diploid) ears fall apart at ripening through fragmentation of the rachis by shattering. However, the tetraploid forms have a tough rachis that holds the seeds together in a harvestable ear

23
Q

What was the old method of removing the chaff (casing) from the seed?

A

Parching
Heating the grains by holding them over a fire. It is slow and tedious.
Threshing could not successfully remove the chaff from grains, because the grain was held too tightly by the chaff

24
Q

How is the chaff removed from the seeds of domesticated tetraploid wheat?

A

Free-threshing
These organisms have a mutation called the Q gene which produced a free-threshing wheat, making the separation of the grain from the chaff easy

25
Q

What does free-threshing preserve?

A

Gluten. As it is a protein, heating destroys the gluten in wheat flour. Leavened bread cannot be made without gluten

26
Q

What form of polyploidy is seen in current bread wheat?

A

Hexaploidy - even greater yield

27
Q

What is genetic erosion?

A

The loss of genetic variation via a reduction in the size of the gene pool

28
Q

What are molecular markers used for?

A

Pieces of DNA randomly places in the chromosome, used in breeding programmes to follow genes or which the phenotype is difficult to score. The molecular marker must be closely linked to the gene of interest

29
Q

What is a strong selective sweep?

A

It results in a region of the genome where the advantageous new allele is essentially the only one that exists in the population, resulting in a large reduction in the total genetic variation in that chromosome region

30
Q

What is the dangerous result of a selective sweep?

A

There is homozygosity not only at the locus of the specific gene, but also at flanking loci owing to ‘hitch-hiking’. The flanking alleles can be ‘bad’ alleles and have a dangerous effect on the carrier

31
Q

What is porcine stress syndrome?

A

In pigs, there is a gene linked to the IGF2 gene (determines leanness) called RYR1. One allele of this gene is mutated, and if pigs which are homozygous for this gene are subjected to stress or anaesthetic, they die of malignant hypothermia. Pietran pigs with a mutated silencer are homozygous for this gene

32
Q

What has been the main cause of genetic erosion in domesticated species over the last 100 years?

A

The release of modern cultivars

33
Q

Advantages of modern cultivars (monocultures)

A
  • Uniform product
  • Required less farmer input time
  • Suitable for big business input
34
Q

Disadvantages of modern cultivars (monocultures)

A
  • Susceptible to change in circumstances (low genetic diversity)
  • Requires high input (fertiliser, pesticides, etc)
  • Less suitable for small farmers
35
Q

What proportion of world cereal is fed to livestock?

A

over 1/3

36
Q

When was Dolly the cloned sheep born? How many attempts were made to clone a sheep before it was successful?

A

July 1996

227 attempts

Year 1 Biology Ellie M (28 decks)

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