Topic 4 - Natural Selection And Genetic Modification Flashcards

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1
Q

What’s evolution?

A

Evolution is the slow and continuous change of organisms from one generation to the next.

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2
Q

What did Charles Darwin come up with?

A

Charles Darwin came up with the theory of natural selection to explain how evolution occurs

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3
Q

Why do individuals in a population show genetic variation?
How do new alleles arise?

A

Because of a difference in their alleles. New alleles arise through mutations

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4
Q

What things can effect an organisms chance of reproducing ?

A
  • predation
    -competition for resources
    -disease
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5
Q

What’s the advantage of animals have characteristics better adapted to selection pressures?
What does this lead to?

A

-The animals with the characteristics that make them better adapted to their environment have a BETTER CHANCE OF SURVIVAL ARE MORE LIKELY TO BREED SUCESSFULLY and pass on their genes

-this means that the alleles responsible for the useful characteristics are more likely to be passed on to the next generation.

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6
Q

What will happen if individuals are less well adapted to their environment ?

A

They will be less able to compete , so are less likely to survive and reproduce

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7
Q

What do fossils provide evidence for?

A

Fossils provide evidence for evolution

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8
Q

What is a fossil?

A

A fossil is a trace of a plant or animal that lived a long time ago. They’re most commonly found in rocks

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9
Q

What’s is likely to mean if a rock is deep?

A

The deeper the rock, the older the fossil.

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10
Q

Why are rocks useful to scientists for providing evidence of human evolution?

A

Fossils in chronological order show gradual changes. This shows how a species has changes and developed.

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11
Q

How can bacteria prove evidence for evolution?

A

1) bacteria develop random mutation. make them
resistant to an antibiotic

2) if they resist they can survive longer and as a result reproduce more

3) allele from antibiotic resistance being passed onto more offspring

4) makes bacteria better adapted to the environment they live in and around antibiotics

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12
Q

What theory did Charles Darwin come up with?

A

Charles Darwin came up with the theory of evolution by natural selection.

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13
Q

What did Charles Darwin notice?

A

Charles Darwin noticed there was variation between members of the same species. Those with characteristics best suited to their environment were most likely to survive.

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14
Q

Stages of natural selection?

A

1) variation- species will have differences

2) natural selection- animals not well adapted die off

3) inheritance - good characteristics passed on

4) evolution- all animals not suited die of so the ones left over are well adapted

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15
Q

What were one of Wallace’s observations that provided the theory of evolution by natural selection?

A

Wallace realised that some species use warning colours to deter predators.

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16
Q

How has evolution influenced modern biology.. classification , antibiotic resistance, conservation

A

Classification- we are all related in some way, classify organisms on how closely related they are.

Antibiotic resistance - constantly develop new antibiotics to fight newly evolved bacteria

Conservation- importance of genetic diversity helping populations adapt to changing environments. Led to conservation projects

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17
Q

What are human beings and their ancestors known as?

A

hominids

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18
Q

What happened to brain size as our ancestors evolved?

A

As they got more intelligent their brain and skull size increased

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19
Q

How old was the ardi fossil?
How old was the Lucy fossil?

A

Ardi fossil - 4.4 million years old

Lucy fossil - 3.2 million years old

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20
Q

What did Richard Leakey and his team do?

A

They went to Kenya and found homo fossils. Found a turkana boy- 1.6 million year old fossil skeleton

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21
Q

Order from oldest to most recent of homo species ardipithecus and Australopithecus species?

A

Ardipithecus
Australopithecus
Homo species

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22
Q

How does complexity of stone tools prove evidence for evolution?

A

Because they started using stone tools that were more complex, this showed their brains must have been getting larger and they were getting more intelligent.

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23
Q

What 3 ways can scientists can date fossils?

A

1) looking at structural features. Simple tools are older

2) using stratigraphy, older rock layers are found under younger ones, so fossils in deeper layers are usually older

3)carbon-14 dating

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24
Q

What is a pentadactyl limb?
Examples of species that have them?

A

A limb with five digits
Eg: mammals , reptiles , amphibians

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25
Q

How does the pentadactyl limb provide evidence for evolution?

A

Similarity in bone structure provides evidence that species with pentadactyl limbs came from a common ancestor. Bats and humans both have pentadactyl limbs

26
Q

What’s classification?

A

Classification is Organising living organisms into groups

27
Q

What are the 5 kingdoms ? Examples of things in them?

A

Animals - fish ,mammals , reptiles

Plants- grass, trees

Fungi- mushrooms , mould

Prokaryotes - single celled organisms without a nucleus

Protists - eukaryotic single- celled organisms

28
Q

Order of classifying an organism. King prawn curry or far greasy sausages ?

A

Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species

29
Q

What’s a more modern way of classifying organisms ?

A

Determine the sequence of DNA bases in differnt organisms genes and compare them. The more similar the sequence of a gene, the more closely related they are to

30
Q

What did woese suggest?
What are the 3 domains he suggested?

A

That all organisms should be divided into large groups called domains.
-archea
-bacteria
-eukarya

31
Q

What is in the archea domain?

A

Organisms that look similar to bacteria but aren’t it. Found in extreme places

32
Q

What’s in the bacteria domain?

A

True bacteria eg: coli

33
Q

What’s in the eukarya domain?

A

Fungi plants animals and protists

34
Q

What is selective breeding?
Why is it done?

A

Selective breeding is when humans artificially select the plants or animals that are going to breed so the gene for a particular characteristic is multiplied/ passed on.

To get the best possible offspring

35
Q

Examples of things that are selectively bred ?

A
  • animals to produce more meat or milk
  • dogs with a good , gentle temper
  • crops with disease resistance
  • plants that produce a bigger fruit
36
Q

How is selective breeding useful in agriculture?

A

To produce more meat, farmers could select cows with better characteristics for producing meat and breed them together. After doing this for generations, cows would have a very high meat yield

37
Q

How is selective breeding useful in medicine?

A
  • investigating the reasons behind alcoholism
  • rats have been bred with either a strong preference for alcohol or a weak preference for alcohol.

-this lets researchers compare the differences between the rats and how their brains work.

38
Q

Disadvantages of selective breeding?

A

-reduces the gene pool (the number of different alleles in a population) best animals always get bred , this is called inbreeding

-inbreeding can cause health problems where organisms can inherit differnt health problems. This leads to ethical concerns

  • can be a problem is a new disease emerges, there’s not much variation in the population. So there’s less chance of a resistance allele being there.
39
Q

What does tissue culture mean?
What does it create?

A

-Tissue culture involved growing cells on an artificial growth medium.
-tissue culture is very quick and easy to create whole plants with

40
Q

What are plants produced via tissue culture called?

Why are clones useful

A

-clones

-clones are useful because you can create a line of them with the same beneficial features such as petite resistance

41
Q

Steps of tissue culture in plants? Cloning a plant.

A

1) pick the plant you want to clone based on characteristics

2)remove several small pieces of tissue from parent plant

3)grow tissue in a growth medium containing nutrients and growth hormones. This is done under sterile conditions

4)as tissues produce shoots and roots they can be moved to potting compost to carry on growing

42
Q

What are 2 uses of tissue culture?

A
  • growing and cloning plants
  • animal tissue culture is useful for medical research
43
Q

How is animal tissue used in medical research ?

A

-It’s useful because you can carry out all kinds of experiments on tissues in isolation.

-this means when you investigate how a particular substance of environmental change effects an organism, there won’t be complications in the whole organism

44
Q

How to carry out ANIMAL tissue culture?

A
  • extract a sample of the tissue you want to study from the animal

-the cells in the sample are then separated using enzymes

  • then they’re placed in a culture vessel and bathed in a growth medium containing the nutrients they need to grow and multiply
  • after several rounds of cell division the cells can be split and placed into seprrage vessels to encourage further growth.
  • one tissue culture has been grown, it can be stored for further use.
45
Q

What’s generic engineering useful in?

A

Genetic engineering is useful in agriculture and medicine.

46
Q

What is generic engineering ?

A

Generic engineering involves modifying the organisms genome to introduce desirable characteristics

47
Q

Examples of where genetic engineering benefits society?

A
  • agriculture , crops genetically modified to be resistant to herbicides. This means farmers can spray weeds without affecting crops
  • medicine, bacteria genetically engineered to produce human insulin
  • transfered human genes that produce proteins into sheep’s and cows. These proteins can be then extracted through milk

-organ donation from animals to humans

48
Q

Risks that come with genetic engineering?

A
  • concerns about growing genetically modified crops, the transplanted genes may get out into the environment.

-concerns that genetically modified crops could affect food chains and human health.

  • concerns for animals. Many genetically modified embryos don’t survive and lots have health problems later in life
49
Q

What are restriction enzymes used for?

A

Restriction enzymes recognise specific sequences of DNA and cut the DNA at these points. Leaves the DNA with sticky ends where they’ve been cut.

50
Q

What do Ligase enzymes do in genetic engineering?

A

Ligase enzymes are used to join two pieces of DNA together at their sticky ends

51
Q

What are two differnt bits of DNA stuck together known as?

A

Two differnt bits of DNA stuck together are known as recombinant DNA

52
Q

What can vectors be used for?

A

Vectors can be used to insert DNA into other organism

53
Q

What are the two types of vectors ?

A

-plasmids, small circular molecules of dna that can be transfered between bacteria

-viruses , insert DNA into the organisms they infect

54
Q

How does genetic engineering work? 5 steps

A

1) DNA you want to insert is cut out with a restriction enzyme. Vector dna is cut open using the same restriction enzyme

2)vector DNA and the DNA your inserting are left with sticky ends. Mixed together with Ligase enzymes

3) Ligase join the pieces of DNA together to make recombinant DNA

4) recombinant dna is inserted into other cells

5)cells can now use the gene you inserted to make the protein you want

55
Q

How can crops become resistant to insects? Why would people do it?

A

They can be genetically modified to become resistant to insect

This can improve crop yields and reduce the need for chemical pesticides

56
Q

What’s the acronym for the bacterium that produces toxin to kill most of the insects that are harmful to crops?

A

Bt produces toxins that kill many of the insect larvae that are harmful to crops

57
Q

How can GM crops help the rapidly growing population?

A

GM crops can be used to help increase food production and help improve crop yields

58
Q

Example of a genetically modified crop used to combat a deficiency disease ?

A

Golden rice has been genetically engineered to produce a chemical that’s converted in the body To vitamin A

59
Q

Why are some people against GM crops that are used to provide more food for people?

A

-Because they think that countries will become dependent on companies that sell GM crops

  • sometimes poor soil is the reason crops fail, so even GM crops won’t survive
60
Q

Techniques to increase food production other than genetic modifying ?

A

-fertilisers to improve soil quality

  • other animals to control pests

-