Module 1 Flashcards
What is life capable of?
Growth, Reproduction, Functional activity, Adaptation
What is a prion?
Infectious agent that causes proteins to fold up in weird ways, NOT alive
What are viruses?
Infectious agents that use host machinery, yet they don’t respond to stimuli, NOT alive
What are kingdoms?
Taxonomic category of the highest rank
What are the 6 kingdoms?
Plants, animals, fungi, Protista, bacteria, archaea
What are the 3 domains?
Eukarya, Bacteria, Archaea
What is a species?
A group of individuals that regurlarily breed together
What are prokarya?
Single cells that lack membrane-bound organelles
What are eukarya?
Organisms whose cells have a nucleus enclosed within membranes
How do prokaryote get to eukaryote?
- Acquire a nucleus
- Acquire a mitochondria
- Acquire chloroplasts
What is evolution?
Change in inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations
What is natural selection?
Non-random evolution, phenotypic variation that is heritable
What is selection acting upon?
Phenotypes
What is adaptation?
Traits that are evolved through natural selection
What is stabilizing selection?
Pushing everything toward the middle/mean, extreme variants are selected against
ex: birth weight
What is directional selection?
Selection will move in directional of favourable phenotype based on its survival in the given environment
ex: different fur colours
What is sexual selection?
Features of an animal whose function is not to improve survival but to maximize their reproductive success
What is intrasexual selection?
Individuals intimidate, deter, or defeat same-sex rivals
What is intersexual selection?
Individuals make themselves more attractive to the opposite sex
The flashy sex has greater:
Variance or skew, will evolve more elaborate traits
The choosy sex has greater:
Investment, therefore they are more selective about who to mate with
What is skew?
Tells us about the shape of distribution
What is the Bateman’s Gradient?
The idea that whichever sex has greater variance or reproductive skew (flashy) will have a steeper Bateman’s Gradient
What is Sexy Sons/Fisher’s Runaway Selection Model?
The idea that females show a preference for a particular character, so the sons of those females will display that character and the daughters will display that preference
What is the Good Genes/Immunocompetence hypothesis?
The idea that some males are genetically more resistant to infections/parasites, therefore they would survive longer be less likely to affect females and their offspring
What is the Pre-existing sensory bias and sensory exploitation?
The idea that females have a bias for particular types of sensory stimuli, and they mate with males that produce their preferred signal
What is a phylogeny?
A history of organismal lineages as they change through time
What is a parsimony?
How to get to the pattern of trait expression in the descendants with the fewest changes
What is a pleiotropy?
When a single gene influences many phenotypic traits
What is genetic drift?
A change in frequency of an existing gene (random)
What is genetic bottleneck?
An extreme example of drift where an event results in a big decrease in population size and genetic diversity
What is founder effect?
Similar to a genetic bottleneck except here a subset of the population “founds” a new population somewhere else (still results as a decrease in population size and genetic diversity)
What is inbreeding?
When closely related individuals mate
What do natural barriers do?
Separate species and prevent gene flow between populations
What is speciation?
Occurs when gene pools are separated and populations diverge genetically overtime
What is reproductive isolation?
Mechanisms that prevent gene flow between members of different species
What is a zygote?
Cell formed by the joining of two gametes