Topic 2 Vocabulary

Question 1

• Structures that appear to be useless but had ancestral function. For example, humans have vestigial appendixes and tails, horses have vestigial splints, and pythons have vestigial reduced leg bones

Answer 1

Vestigial Structures

Question 2

• Two or more harmful species that are not closely related but share one or more common predators, have come to mimic each other’s warning signals

Answer 2

Mullerian Mimicry

Question 3

• This is slightly different from Mullerian mimicry in that a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a common predator

Answer 3

Batesian Mimicry

Question 4

• All the alleles for any given trait in the population

Answer 4

Gene Pool

Question 5

• This speciation occurs without a geographic barrier, so the population is continuous, but it still does not mate randomly. Individuals more likely to mate with geographic neighbors than with an individual farther out, so divergence may happen due to reduced gene flow and because of varying selection pressures across the population’s range. A population may occupy different niches that are adjacent and not isolated, so parapatric speciation could occur

Answer 5

Parapatric Speciation

Question 6

• This is very similar to allopatric speciation in that a population is isolated and prevented from exchanging genes from the “main” one, but one of the populations is much smaller than the other, so it is subject to accelerated genetic drift along with differing selection pressures

Answer 6

Peripatric Speciation

Question 7

• The gradual evolution of a species without any branching; it is a straight path of evolution

Answer 7

Anagenesis/phyletic Evolution

Question 8

• A method of classification according to the proportion of measurable characteristics held in common between two organisms. The more characteristics they share, the more recently they diverged from common ancestor

Answer 8

Cladistics

Question 9

• A group of species that includes a common ancestor and all of its descendants. A clade is also known as a monophylum

Answer 9

Clade

Question 10

• Particular stage of an ecosystem

Answer 10

Sere

Question 11

• An organic matter that leaves an impression in rocks or in inorganic matter. Later, the organic matter decays and leaves a negative impression

Answer 11

Mold

Question 12

• A type of fossil formed when a mold is filled in

Answer 12

Cast

Question 13

• A small local population of the same species that regularly interbreed. For example, all the beavers along a specific portion of a river

Answer 13

Deme

Question 14

• Chemosynthetic bacteria

Answer 14

Autotrophic Anaerobes

Question 15

• Green plants and phytoplankton

Answer 15

Autotrophic Aerobes

Question 16

• Yeast

Answer 16

Heterotrophic Anaerobes

Question 17

• Amoebas, earthworms, and humans

Answer 17

Heterotrophic Aerobes

Question 18

• A relationship between two species. The relationship can be:

Answer 18

Symbiosis

Question 19

• The relationship is beneficial to both species

Answer 19

Mutualistic

Question 20

• The relationship is beneficial to one species and neutral to the other species

Answer 20

Commensalism

Question 21

• The relationship is beneficial to one species but detrimental to the other species

Answer 21

Parasitism

Question 22

• Shared traits derived from an evolutionary ancestor common to all members of a group

Answer 22

Synapomorphies

Question 23

• Similar characteristics resulting from convergent evolution, therefore they are not derived from a common ancestor

Answer 23

Analogous Traits

Question 24

• This is also known as Occam’s Razor, which states that the simplest explanation is most likely correct. Phylogenetic trees are constructed using the Law of Parsimony. The fewest number of changes with respect to synapomorphies is likely the most correct representation of reality

Answer 24

Law of Parsimony

Question 25

• Monophyletic
• Paraphyletic
• Polyphyletic

Answer 25

Phyletic Groups

Question 26

• the ancestral species and all its descendants

Answer 26

a. Monophyletic

Question 27

• the ancestral species and some but not all descendants

Answer 27

b. Paraphyletic:

Question 28

• the common ancestor of its members is not a part of the group

Answer 28

c. Polyphyletic