Lectures 1 & 2
- Bees dancing
- Bees killing hornets
- your lungs (individual cells do not aid you breathing)
Which of the 4 microevolutionary forces is considered adaptive? hint: only 1
How are polygyny and polyandry different?
polygyny- many females for 1 male
polyandry- many males for 1 female
What is punctuated equilibrium?
Sudden change through mutation of a larger effect.
What is the difference between reductionism and holism?
Reductionism- looking at smaller entities (parts of a whole)
Holism- understanding things through explanation of the context (looking at the whole)
Positive assortment mating
Why is it easier to breed miniature wolves than it is to breed miniature cheetahs?
Because wolves have a larger gene pool (more phenotypic variation).
What is the "Raup/Sepkoski" graph, and what does it show?
The graph compiled data from the fossil record of every taxonomic family of marine animals. It shows the "big 5" extinction events.
If a population completely lacked phenotypic variation, what would it look like and why would it be unchangeable by natural selection?
Natural selection would not be favoring any specific phenotypes since everyone in the population has the same phenotypes. There has to be variation that natural selection can act upon.
What are you calculating for when working the Hardy Weinberg problems?
You are calculating for the genotype frequency and comparing it with the HW calculations to see if that population is evolving or not.
How does recombination under sexual reproduction generate heritable phenotypic variation in a population?
Recombination allows for exchange of genetic information between the parents, resulting in unique traits for the offspring that is different from their parents, which increase the variation in a population.
What is the difference between homeosis and heterochrony?
Homeosis- conversing of a repeated body part into something else
Heterochrony- altering the timing of developmental events
What makes particulate inheritance different from blending inheritance?
Particulate inheritance says the offspring is a combination of the parents' phenotypes, whereas blending says the offspring gets an average of both parents' phenotypes.
What is the principle of parsimony? Why is a null hypothesis more favored than an alternate hypothesis?
The principle of parsimony means having the fewest requirements.
A null hypothesis is more favored because a simpler explanation, that requires less conditions to be met, is more likely to be true.
What is the difference between prezygotic and postzygotic reproductive isolation? What are some possible explanations to why there is a reproductive isolation.
Postzygotic- the zygote can form, but it would be either sterile or inviable.
What is species selection? How is it different from natural selection?
Species selection happens between species, there isn't a more fit species than the other, but one could have avoided extinction better than the other one.
It's different from natural selection because species selection happens on a species level, but natural selection looks at individual organisms (favoring specific phenotypes).