BIOL 10513 - Unit 1 - Demarest

Which of the following organisms is a primary producer that gets its energy from chemicals?

A chemoautotroph

Which of these acts as the energy currency of a cell?

ATP

What is stochastic extinction?

Extinction that occurs just due to (bad) luck

Which of the following correctly pairs the animal with its symmetry?

Flatworms: bilateral symmetry

Which kind of selective pressure is LEAST likely to result in the formation of a new species?

Stabilizing selection

Which of these involves a cell taking up DNA from the environment, thereby potentially gaining the abilities encoded in the DNA?

Transformation

Which of these biomes is expected to exhibit the lowest biodiversity?

Tundra

Which of the following declarations most suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature and process of science?

"Evolution is just a theory, not a fact"

You count the rest of the snipes from the previous question and find the following: 36 blue fur 28 purple fur 36 red fur What is the frequency of the blue fur allele in this population, assuming your sample is representative? (Hint: Do you need to use the assumptions of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in this case?)

0.50

Which of the following statements is correct with regard to the energy pathways of living things?

Aerobic respiration involves stripping electrons from oxygen and passing them through an electron transport system

Why did the evolution of the hinged jaw result in a burst of evolution in animals?

Because being able to forcefully open and close the mouth made it easier to acquire food in large amounts from a wider variety of food sources

According to evolutionary theory, which of the following is the best explanation for why living things appear to be well designed for their environments?

Because the best designs are usually the ones that best persist

Why do some regions of DNA accumulate mutations at a higher rate than others in species?

Because those regions of DNA can better tolerate mutation without ill consequence to the organism

A rooted phylogenetic tree relates what information?

Both the relationships between organisms and their ancestral lines of descent

Which biome is most likely to be found in mid-latitude areas with clear season and plentiful rainfall?

Broad-leaved deciduous forest

Which of these is an organic molecule?

Carbohydrate

What are heterocysts, and where would you find them?

Cells that are specialized for nitrogen fixation in cyanobacteria

Cells of the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus experience a cost for maintaining antibiotic-resistance genes. Which of the following is most likely to occur in the absence of antibiotics?

Cells that lack antibiotic-resistance genes will become relatively more abundant over time

Which comes next in the series? Kingdom > Phylum > _____

Class

Which of the following situation would be LEAST likely to cause a deviation from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in the relevant population?

Coral polyps "broadcast" release their sperm into the ocean, which then fertilize whichever female they happen to come into contact with

Which of the following is the best (clearest) indicator that a claim is likely nonscientific in nature?

It continues to be held to despite contradictory evidence

What does it mean when we say that science is empirical (uses empiricism)?

It involves testing ideas against observable reality

Which of the following best captures the concept of a paraphyletic group?

It is a grouping of organisms that represents only part of a clade

What is the difference between taxonomy and classification?

Taxonomy involves describing and naming living things, whereas classification involves assigning and organizing living things into larger groups by some overall (typically hierarchical) scheme

Theodosius Dobzhansky famously asserted that "nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution." What does this mean?

That evolution provides a natural explanation for everything we see in biology

A scientist does an experiment to test a hypothesis, and the outcome supports the hypothesis. What conclusion should the scientist draw?

That the hypothesis is possibly right

A certain gene tends to accumulate mutations at a rate of 1 mutation per 10 million years. If two species exhibit nucleotide sequences for this gene that differ from each other by 10 base pairs, about how long ago did these species last share a common ancestor?

~ 50 MYA

Snipe color is determined by a single gene with two alleles: one that codes for blue pigment, and the other for red. Heterozygotes look purple. You get a kid to catch 100 snipes from your backyard and note that 36 of the snipes have blue fur. What is the expected frequency of the blue fur allele in this population, assuming the sample is representative and the population is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium?

0.60

Which of the following best describes the origin of the eukaryotic domain?

A bacterial cell began living inside an archaeal cell

What is the difference between a chemoorganotroph and a chemolithotroph?

A chemoorganotroph utilizes organic molecules for energy, whereas a chemolithotroph utilizes inorganic compounds for energy

Which of the following statements is correct regarding inductive vs. deductive reasoning?

A deductive argument is one that must be true if the premises it is based on are correct

Consider the individuals below, all of whom are part of the same population. Which of them is likely to be the most evolutionarily successful?

A female that lives for 20 days and leaves 10 offsprings, all of whom survive to reproduce

Which of the following correctly pairs the phenomenon with its term?

A group of colonizers leave a population, carrying with it only a fraction of the parent population's genetic diversity = founder effect

Which of the following scenarios is most likely to result in an adaptive radiation event?

A group of rabbits move into an area that has plentiful resources and no other animals

Which of these organisms should be classified as a consumer?

A heterotroph

Which of the following scenarios would be LEAST likely to result in a selective pressure?

A meteor shower destroys all of the organisms living in the areas the meteors hit

Hypotheses for abiogenesis all generally require a few key elements, including an aquatic environment, a way to concentrate the molecules of life, a membrane bubble, and what else?

A self-replicating molecule

Which of the following is an example of anaerobic respiration?

An organism generates ATP by extracting electrons from methane and passing them into sulfate via an electron transport chain

Which of the following organisms is most likely to be considered an extremophile?

An organism that lives in a near-boiling hot spring

Which of the following statements is correct?

Animal overgrazing and trampling can lead to desertification

Which of these correctly pairs the phylum with its common name or characteristic?

Annelida: segmented worms

Which of the following is properly considered a part of science?

Any conclusion, right or wrong, that was determined using the scientific method

Which of these is the largest animal phylum, by far?

Arthropoda

What kinds of organisms do carbon fixation (always)?

Autotrophs

What is the difference between autotrophs and heterotrophs?

Autotrophs produce their own sugar from carbon dioxide, while heterotrophs must consume sugar from an outside source

Which node in the tree below represents the most recent common ancestor of the beetles and trees?

B

Which of the following groupings, along with their relevant common ancestor, would represent a clade according to this phylogeny?

B, C, D, E, F

Suppose that an island is colonized by a group of finches of a certain species that came over from the mainland. The island has two food sources: large seeds and small seeds. Finches who have large beaks can eat the large seeds, and finches that have small beaks can eat the small seeds. Finches with a medium size beak can't eat either one very well. When the finches mate and reproduce, their offspring have beaks of a size that is a blend of (intermediate between) their parents' beaks. This situation is most likely to present which of the following kinds of selection?

Disruptive selection

Which of the following correctly pairs the term with its definition?

Ecosystem: a biological community and its habitat

The effectiveness of a certain insecticide decreases over time, until eventually it is useless for killing insect pests. Which of the following is most likely to eventually lead to insecticide resistance?

Frequent use of the insecticide at relatively low concentrations

Which of the following is correct regarding the mechanisms of evolution?

Genetic mutations arise randomly

Which of the following correctly pairs the terms with its definition?

Genome: the entire regular set of chromosomes carried by an organism; its complete genetic blueprint

A third domain of life was recognized based on what?

Great differences in gene sequences

Who first proposed the Protista as a third kingdom of life, while including the bacteria among them?

Haeckel

Which of the following statements is correct?

Humans are more closely related to fungi than to trees

Which of the following best describes the logic of scientific inquiry?

If my hypothesis is correct, then it following that I can expect these certain test results

Which of the following is correct about speciation?

It is possible for speciation to occur even in the absence of particular selective pressures driving the change

Which of the following statements is the best example of valid deductive reasoning?

It it's true that all monkeys eat bananas, and that Bonzo is a monkey, then Bonzo must eat bananas

A human sperm cell has a far smaller Reynolds number than does a sperm whale. What does this mean for the sperm?

It means that a sperm can't travel through water nearly as easily as a sperm whale can

Which of the following is correct about oxygenic phototrophy?

It only ever evolved once on Earth, specifically in the cyanobacteria

Which of the following is a typical characteristic of the most parsimonious explanation for a phenomenon?

It relies on the fewest improbable events

Which of the following statements is correct about the theory of evolution?

It suggests that all structures found within organisms have arisen in a step by step manner

Which of the following is correct about this phylogenetic tree?

It suggests that species E is equally related to species B and D

Which innovation, in addition to the increased energy capacity made possible by endosymbionts, most enabled the evolution of multicellularity in the eukaryotes?

Linear rather than circular DNA

Which of the following scientists was most likely to hold to the "animal, vegetable, or mineral" view of the world, while also not recognizing the possibility that living things change over time?

Linnaeus

Which scientist is credited with resurrecting and successfully championing the hypothesis of an endosymbiotic origin for the eukaryotes?

Margulis

According to our current best view of life, which of the following statements is most accurate?

Mitochondria and chloroplasts are more closely related to bacteria than to archaea

Which of Whittaker's five kingdoms of life actually encompasses two domains of life?

Monera

What does it suggest when a certain gene shows very little variation in a population, as compared to other genes in the population?

Mutations in the gene are being more strongly selected against

Which of the following acts to decrease genetic diversity in a population?

Natural selection

Which of the following statements is correct?

Niche differentiation involves specialization

Which of the following prokaryotic cell lines would have the potential to evolve and diversify the most rapidly?

One that exhibits a high DNA replication error frequency with a high reproduction rate

Which of the following statements is correct?

Organisms capable of fixing carbon are found among all three domains of life

In the name Homo sapiens, what does the Homo part represent?

Our genus

Which of these shows a sequence of events arranged in proper chronological order (from earliest to latest)?

Our system of taxonomy established --> Evolution proposed --> Prokaryotes placed in a different group from eukaryotes

Which of the following statements is correct?

Outgroups are used to root phylogenetic trees

Which of these statements is correct?

Oxidative phosphorylation involved using an electron transport system to produce ATP

Which of the following is correct about nitrogen fixation?

Oxygen interferes with the process

The evolution of which metabolic pathway almost wiped out life on Earth at the time (but also turned out to be instrumental to our existence today)?

Oxygenic photosynthesis

An organism is able to convert sunlight energy to ATP energy, but is not able to fix carbon. This organism is what?

Photoheterotrophic

Which of the following is correct regarding the fungi?

Pin, sugar, and bread mold are zygomycetes

Which of Whittaker's five kingdoms of life is made up entirely of members that are the result of endosymbiosis involving both an ancient proteobacterium and an ancient cyanobacterium?

Plantae

Which of the following is correct about the prokaryotes and the microbiome?

Prokaryotes are responsible for many body odors including chronic bad breath

Vascular seedless plants are also known as what?

Pteridophytes

Which of the following statements is correct with regard to the multicellular kingdoms of life?

Red algae are plants

Which of the following would be most likely to alter or skew genotype distributions in a population, but without decreasing the relative abundance or diversity of the alleles associated with the characteristic?

Snipes of all colors prefer to mate with snipes that are a different color from themselves

Which of the following is a problem associated with the biological species concept?

Some groups of organisms are capable of interbreeding but for practical or logistic reasons never actually do

Which of the following is the most accurate description of evolutionary adaptation?

Species become better suited to their environments from generation to generation

What is carbon fixation?

The conversion of inorganic carbon from carbon dioxide into the organic carbon of carbohydrates

What does it mean when a gene is said to be highly conserved?

The gene tends not to change much in its sequence through time

Which of the following best describes radial symmetry?

The organism has distinct top vs. bottom, but no front vs. back, or left vs. right

Which of the following does the theory of evolution NOT provide an explanation for?

The origin of life on Earth

ROUSes (Rodents of Unusual Size) occur in two fur colors: either black or brown. The color is determined by a single gene with two alleles, one that codes for black fur and the other for brown fur. Black ROUSES prefer to mate with other black ROUSes while brown ROUSes prefer to mate with other brown ROUSes. Which of the following is most likely to eventually occur as a consequence of this tendency?

The population would undergo sympatric speciation

Which of the following is correct with regard to the patterns of life?

The prokaryotes are much more metabolically diverse than the eukaryotes

Which of these is an example of proper inductive reasoning?

The sunflowers in my garden are photosynthetic. Therefore, all sunflowers are photosynthetic

What mainly has prevented the prokaryotes from ever evolving complex multicellularity?

They cannot store enough DNA to support a complex genetic program of development

Which of the organisms below share the most recent common ancestor, assuming the level of relatedness indicated?

Two organisms of the same order

Which of the following is the best example of a postzygotic barrier?

When a blue snipe mates with a red snipe, the offpring is purple--which is the color most easily seen by predators, causing them to be more likely to be caught and eaten

Why is the hot water temperature of hydrothermal vent systems significant to the question of whether such systems could represent the conditions of the birthplace of life?

When mixed with the surrounding cold seawater it results in zones of greatly varying temperature, which could have supported more varied chemical reactions

When trying to identify or distinguish organisms using genetic data, in which of the cases below would it be best to choose a more variable region of DNA for the analysis?

When the organisms are very closely related