Midterm 1 Review

Question 1

Plesiomorphy

Answer 1

A trait shared by all members of a clade, but not diagnostic of that clade.
Ex: (All terrestrial mammals have 4 legs, but not all animals with 4 legs are terrestrial mammals.)

Question 2

Autapomorphy

Question 3

Apomoprhy

Question 4

Lamarckism

Answer 4

“Use it or lose it.” Use/disuse of a structure would cause it to increase or decrease in prominence, and this would be heritable to future generations.

Question 5

Uniformitarianism

Answer 5

Associated with Charles Lyell (proposed by James Hutton), the theory that geological changes have resulted from the action of continuous and uniform processes. Implies the earth is millions of years old.

Question 6

Thomas Malthus

Answer 6

Influenced both Wallace and Darwin, professed that population size was limited by available resources, and resources don’t scale with a population.

Question 7

Alfred Wallace

Answer 7

Came up with the mechanism of Natural Selection contemporaneously to Darwin.

Question 8

Homology

Answer 8

Shared expression by a feature as the product of a single evolutionary origin.

Question 9

homoplasy

Answer 9

Shared feature, but the product of multiple evolutionary origins.

Question 10

ACTRAN

Answer 10

Short of “accelerated transformation.” A method of picking between equally parsimonious explanations that places the transformation towards the root. An ACCTRAN choice maximizes homology.

Question 11

DELTRAN

Answer 11

Short of “delayed transformation.” A method of picking between equally parsimonious explanations that places the transformation towards the tips. An DELTRAN choice minimizes reversals.

Question 12

Three requirements for Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection

Answer 12

1. Variation produced through sexual reproduction
2. The fitness of organisms varies according to the state
   they have for a character and their environment
3. Character states must be heritable

Question 13

Fitness

Answer 13

The number of offspring an
individual produces relative
to another individual (reproductive
success)

Question 14

Gregor Mendel

Answer 14

Conducted research on heritability. Used hybrids of garden peas to work out basic rules of inheritance.

Question 15

Principle of segregation

Answer 15

units of inheritance occur in pairs, and
offspring receive one from each
parent

Question 16

Monophyletic group

Answer 16

Group that includes an ancestor and all of that ancestor’s descendants.

Question 17

Paraphyletic Group

Answer 17

Group that includes an ancestor and some but not all of its descendants. Single origin, like clades, but not clades.

Question 18

Polyphyletic groups

Answer 18

Include various taxons, but not their common ancestor.

Question 19

Nucleotide component

Answer 19

Sugar-phosphate backbone, and nitrogeneous bases.

Question 20

DNA Base Pairings

Answer 20

A(adenine) pairs with T(thymine), G(guanine) pairs with C(cytosine).

Question 21

Transcription

Answer 21

DNA read onto mRNA

Question 22

Transcription

Answer 22

Ribosome assembles the protein