Microevolution and macroevolution

Question 1

What are the 4 factors of Darwinian fitness?

Answer 1

A relative measure of reproductive success of an organism in
passing its genes to the next generation. Made up of the
following components:

Ability to attract a mate

Ability to accomplish mating

Ability to produce fertile offspring

Ability to raise young to the age of mating

Question 2

What are the Pre-Zygotic Isolating Mechanisms?

Answer 2

Behavioural - never mate because they don’t
recognize each others courtship rituals

Temporal - different breeding seasons, diurnal vs.
nocturnal lifestyles are unlikely to meet and mate

Geographic - live in different niches within the
same environment; aquatic vs. terrestrial

Mechanical - prevent mating OR gamete fertilization

Question 3

What are the post-zygotic isolating mechanisms?

Answer 3

Zygote mortality - misscarriage terminates pregnancy due
to gamete incompatibility

Hybrid inviability - offspring are weak or don’t survive
to age of reproduction

Hybrid infertility - offspring are infertile and cannot
reproduce