Examples Flashcards
How can you measure the impacts of Nature and Nurture?
Parent offspring regression
Twin studies
Animal models
Clones
Problems with Narrow Sense heritability
Depends on environment variation
Female choice and lek paradox
Constant selection on a gene should reduce genetic variation
Human genome project problems?
Biggest finding was that there wasn’t a 1:1 relationship between genes and phenotype
How did caucasian and Aboriginal children differ in spatial memory?
Aboriginal children better, saw shapes rather than objects
Other examples of spatial memory differences?
London Cab Driver’s hippocampus
African athleitism: selection pressures from life style - stealing cattle in one town
What is the flow of actions in the central DOGMA?
Replication -> Transcription -> Translation
How does a mutation occur?
DNA polymerase is very accurate but sometimes mispairing/slippage
Normally 99% corrected but if not = MUTATION
Consequences of mutation in mitosis
Very little effect as other cells dont have similar mutations
2 major sources of Variation
Mutations
Recombination/Crossing over
Mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance
- Make DNA unable to bind to RNA transferase( Horizontal memory, Vertical memory)
- Chromatin/Histone remodelling
- Alternative Splicing
- Micro-RNA (mRNA)
Why is early environment linked to adulthood disease?
Long term effects of early development
4 hypothesis of why early development affects metabolic function
- 1992 Thrifty phenotype
- Thrifty phenotype as adaptive maternal effect
- PAR
- Matching between maternal and offspring phenotype
Examples of PAR
Meadow voles and coats
WWII correlational studies
Predictions of early vs. late life conditions (4)
- Environmental Matching
- Silver Spoon
- Matching/Silver Spoon
- Silver spoon/mactching II
Correlational evidence of early/late life conditions
Supportive of Silver spoon (2)
Experimental evidence pf early/late life conditions
Cichlid fish: Silver spoon
Mice: silver spoon with overriding adult conditions
Moths: Silver spoon with PAR evidence
When do you see plasticity?
Environment is varying
Not too varying, would lead to a fixed strategy
Seasonal plumage: Behavioural or Developmental Plasticity?
Behavioural
Sneaker males: Behavioural or Developmental Plasticity?
Morphological changes - developmental
Behavioural plasticity between morphs
Antlers/Horns: Behavioural or Developmental Plasticity?
Behavioural with their seasonal plumage Mainly developmental (cant get rid once they're there)
Turtles: Behavioural or Developmental Plasticity?
TSD is developmental plasticity
Social insects: Behavioural or Developmental Plasticity?
Developmental: royal jelly in bees changes morphology
However, decision to rear queen/worker is behavioural
Crucian carp deep bodies: Behavioural or Developmental Plasticity?
Developmental and adaptive (in presence of pike)
Preference for big eyes in women is a sign of what?
Neoteny (juvenile chimp features maintained)
3 examples of heterochrony
Salmonoids
Tiger Salamanders
Axolotl
Where does the evidence for the Modern Synthesis come from?
Genetics, Paleontology, systematics
Problems with the modern synthesis
How do plastically complex traits arise?
How is Gradual change controversial to the modern synthesis?
Why don’t 2 fitness peaks converge into 1 (e.g. sneaker males should speciate)
What is under selection: Genotype or Phenotype?
Still under debate (Selection currently = change in allelic frequency)
Resolution to modern synthesis problem?
Selection acts on phenotype, not genes
Genes commonly follow evolution, not drive it
Example of resolution to modern synthesis
Bees: eusocial from morphology or behaviour?
Unlikely to be mutation alone, selection on traits
