Charles Darwin
What are the 3 necessary and sufficient conditions for natural selection to occur?
1. Phenotypic variation
2. Selection
3. Heritability
What is genetic drift?
It is mechanism of evolution in which allele frequencies of a population change over generations due to chance (sampling error)
This term is used to describe one female with multiple male partners.
Polyandry
When biological populations of the same species become isolated from each other to an extent that prevents or interferes with gene flow, it is called __________?
Allopatric speciation
What is the hypothesis that states that some kind of force that drives increasing body size in organisms?
Cope's Rule
Supernatural force can't be falsified, therefore scientific. (Bonus, can you falsify this statement: it is scientifcally proven to ....)
What graph would best describe a population where one extreme is being favored (have high fitness)?
Directional Selection
What is the mechanism that allows sexual species to adapt to their environment better than asexual species?
Recombination - in meiosis
What are the two conditions that are required for sympatric speciation to occur?
1. Disruptive selection
2. Nonrandom mating - positive assortment
What is the prediction when descendants and their ancestors are compared using the traditional view (Cope's Rule)?
descendants are larger relative to their ancestors
Charles Lyell
Earth is old.
What are the two forces of microevolutionary force that can counter the effects of genetic drift? When is one not applicable?
2. Gene flow won't work between different species.
How can you tell sexual dimorphism by just looking at the male and female in a species? Be specific
1. Large body size
2. "weapon" of some sort used to fight
3. Weird behaviors
1. habitat isolation
2. "Mechanical Isolation"
3. Mating Season
4. Behavioral Isolation
According to Gould, the explanation as to why forams show a trend towards increasing body size is due to . . .
Boundary size. "Can't go any lower than the minimum"
Why is Lamarck's mechanism for evolution wrong?
Inheritance of acquired traits.
Why does disruptive selection under random mating results in a unimodal curve?
Everyone mates with each other. (Aa x aa, Aa x Aa etc.)
Why is selection of males in polyandrous species weak relative to polygamous species? (Hint: Fitness of the males)
Males have more chance of reproducing in polyandrous species.
What is autopolyploidy? How can this lead to speciation? Give one example in nature that underwent autopolyploidy.
Autopolyploidy appears when an individual has more than two sets of chromosomes, both of which from the same parental species.
Difference in chromosomal number can lead to speciation. How?
Market strawberries vs. wild strawberries.
In one sentence, what does the Raup & Sepkoksi 1982 about the biodiversity on earth?
It tells speciation and extinction of taxonomic families.
Use an example to explain emergent properties in the structural organization of life (atoms - monomers, etc.)
Answers will vary.
Using HW's equation, you solved your non evolving population's genotype frequencies and you discovered that you have an excess of homozygotes in your population. Explain how this could have happened.
1. Natural selection
2. Nonrandom mating - positive assortment
Why are asexual organisms more likely to hit a “dead-end” as they move on their evolutionary path than sexual organisms?
They have a certain "range" which affects their ability to adapt. Mutation is the only way they can achieve phenotypic variation.
Why would gene flow/migration prevent allopatric speciation from happening?
Constant exchange of genes. No gene pool isolation.
In horse evolution, why is natural selection not a viable explanation for its increasing body trend over its evolutionary history?
The fossil record of horses.