Lecture/Lab 2

Question 1

What are the 5 most common driving factors of evolution?

Answer 1

Natural selection, sexual selection, Mutation, Genetic Drift, Gene Flow

Question 2

What 6 things did Darwin realize on his journey before 1838?

Answer 2

1. That the earth is a lot older than people think it is
2. While walking he notices the sequence of fossil types
3. Vestigial Organs, those that simply are there but don’t serve a purpose anymore
4. animals have a common plan, comparative anatomy
5. by raising pigeons he realizes that there is variation within species and that the variation is heritable
6. while walking in Argentina and the Amazon he notices that species change with their environment, ie. rhea

Question 3

What are the three key questions that dominated the science community of the 19th century?

Answer 3

1. How do we explain biodiversity?
2. Why do we see so much likeness or comparative anatomy?
3. Why do we see exquisite adaptations?

Question 4

Which two papers were extremely influential to Darwin in 1838?

Answer 4

Thomas Malthus’s change of population and Adam Smith’s wealth of nations

Question 5

Who was the first to recognize teeth in the fossil record?

Answer 5

Steno

Question 6

Who tried to provide evidence for divine creation?

Answer 6

Paley and the idea that things and organisms are too complex to possibly be from evolution. They must’ve been the product of intelligent design.

Question 7

Who was the first to categorize species by their likeness?

Answer 7

Carl Linnaeus

Question 8

Who was Anning?

Answer 8

the first known woman evolutionary biologist that liked to collect things in the UK

Question 9

who was the first person to think about evolution?

Answer 9

Georges Buffon claimed that populations change over time

Question 10

Explain Lamarckism

Answer 10

Lamarckism is the belief that animals change over time due to behavioural modifications. for example, a giraffe extends its neck over and over again and eventually, its children will be born with a long neck. Lamarck believed this change was due to fluids

Question 11

Which two aspects have been added to evolutionary theory since Darwin?

Answer 11

Idea of Heredity and DNA

Question 12

What is the Malthusian Trap?

Answer 12

the idea that a population will grow too large and not have enough food resources to feed everyone

Question 13

Describe the role of the Galapagos finches in the evolutionary theory stated by Darwin. Who has been studying them for the past couple decades?

Answer 13

The Galapagos finches were the main animal Darwin had to study for the theory of evolution. He studied the same species in many different environments (islands) and noted that there were significant differences among the populations. We know that they most notably varied in beak sizes, suited for their particulate niches. Some had larger beaks used to crush nuts and seeds, while others had very slim beaks used to drink sap and nectar from flowers and trees. They were ingeniously adapted to their particular environments.
Rosemary and Peter Grant have been working with the finches on two Galapagos islands since the 1970s

Question 14

Define the theory of natural theology and its major contributors.

Answer 14

Natural theology is the idea of divine creation and that everything in the world was created by a higher being.
Major contributors were:
- Aristotle and Plato in the “Great Chain of Being”
- Thomas Paley - tried to find evidence by using analogies and metaphors including the “watchmaker”
- John Wray coined the term natural theology as he was a naturalist studying biology and the “greatness of gods creation”

Question 15

What evidence was Darwin able to use in the “Origin of Species” that granted his much respect and turned the scientific community on its head?

Answer 15

Darwin used the species of Galapagos finches, his breeder pigeons, and an array of animals and fossils from South America.

Question 16

define natural selection, design in life, and likeness in diversity

Answer 16

natural selection - the process where organisms better adapted to their respective environments will thrive and reproduce more often than those that aren’t adapted
design in life - is the workings inside organisms that make it able to survive in life. for example, the ability of the brain to decipher electrochemical signals from neutrons into messages about the rest of the body and its environment
likeness in diversity - the phenomenon of comparative anatomy, where we see homologies within animals that are completely different species but may have shared a common ancestor

Question 17

Who first remarked that everything starts as microbes?
“Bacteria are just the newest arrivals”

Answer 17

Lamarck

Question 18

Who argued that inheritance and adaptations are a result of fluid rather than particles.

Answer 18

Lamarck and Darwin (wasn’t sure how inheritance worked)

Question 19

Particulate theory of inheritance

Answer 19

Mendel came up with the theory of particulate inheritance in the idea of genes. he was correct as today we know genes and the traits of inheritance are coded on DNA and can be passed down from parent to offspring.

Question 20

What are applications of evolutionary theory in the modern world?

Answer 20

1. Trying to fight viruses and their high rate of mutations makes them extremely hard to combat.
2. determines that race is not a viable cause for discrimination, the environment plays an extremely important role on organisms
3. figuring out where we came from as a species and looking at non-human primates to look at how we might’ve lived thousands of years ago
4. etc etc.