Midterm 1

Question 1

Living organisms share 5 characteristics

Answer 1

• they are made up of one or more cells
• they store and process information that is heritable
• they replicate
• as populations, they involve
• they use energy

Question 2

viruses

Answer 2

• have the ability to store and transmit information in DNA or RNA
• because viruses cannot independently replicate or independently harness energy, they are not considered to be living organisms

Question 3

dogma

Answer 3

a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true

Question 4

Why do cells exist?

Answer 4

• concentrates reagents for biological reactions
• chemical gradients can be used to store energy
• links a phenotype to the same space as the genotype that encodes it

Question 5

Cell theory

Answer 5

• a cell is a highly organized compartment bounded by a plasma membrane that contains concentrated chemicals in an aqueous solution
• all organisms are made of cells, all cells come from pre-existing cells
• within a multi-cellular individual, all cells are descended from the zygote
• a zygote is derived from other cells (egg and sperm)

Question 6

Cell features

Answer 6

• cells contain DNA that encodes physical attributes
• cells have a boundary between them and the environment
• cells have the ability to harness materials and/or energy

Question 7

Flask experiment

Answer 7

experiment to see if cells come from pre-existing cells

Question 8

Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection

Answer 8

Darwin and Wallace proposed that all species are related by common ancestry and that the characteristics of species can change from generation to generation

Question 9

Evolution

Answer 9

postulates that species are related to one another and can change through time

Question 10

Natural selection

Answer 10

a process that explains how evolution occurs

Question 11

Fitness

Answer 11

the ability of an individual to produce offspring (more to come)

Question 12

Adaptation

Answer 12

a characteristic that increases the fitness of an individual in a particular environment, also the process of a species acquring fitness-improving traits over time

Question 13

Natural selection

Answer 13

in order to occur you need:

1) variation
2) heritable
3) influences offspring
- if certain heritable characteristics lead to increased success in producing offspring, then these traits become more common in the population over time

Question 14

Natural selection on populations

Answer 14

• natural selection acts on individuals

- evolutionary change affects only populations

Question 15

Tree of life

Answer 15

diagram that depicts relationships relationships among species

Question 16

Estimating the tree of life

Answer 16

molecular variation in nucleotides (DNA, RNA) offers info for understanding the evolutionary relationships among all orgnanisms

Question 17

Changes to the tree of life

Answer 17

• indicates 3 major groups of organisms: eukaryotes (Eukarya) and prokaryotes (Bacteria and Archaea)
• taxonomic level is called the domain

Question 18

Artificial selection

Answer 18

• a form of natural selection where humans drive the course of evolution
• repeating this process over generations results in changes in the characteristic of a domesticated population over time

Question 19

Vestigial Traits

Answer 19

• loss of traits we no longer need
• traits that have lost their ancestral function in a species but are still retained by that species
• ex: goosebumps, tailbones, hindlimbs on whales, pelvic spurs on pythons