Biology Chapter 10, 11, 12, 13

In Australia, marsupials have thrived in niches occupied elsewhere in the world by placental mammals. What principle of natural selection does this observation support?

Natural selection can only act upon traits that are present in the population.

Cnidarians are a unique group of organisms. Which statement about cnidarians is true?

Cnidarians can be sessile (polyp) or free-floating (medusa).

Which is a correct statement about sympatric or allopatric speciation?

Polyploidy is a type of sympatric speciation.

What is the key difference between kin selection and group selection?

Relatedness. Kin selection is altruism that helps to increase a relative's fitness and consequently the individual's own fitness. Group selection is a process where an individual's detrimental behavior is beneficial to the population.

Which statement regarding the differences between reptiles and amphibians is true?

Reptiles have amniotic eggs, whereas amphibians do not.

Which statement about group selection is true?

Selfish behavior is favored over group selection.

In 1988, a biologist named Richard Lenski introduced 12 genetically identical populations of E. coli to test tubes and subjected them to the same conditions: a period of growth followed by starvation. After several years, all 12 strains had adapted to the conditions in similar ways; however, their genetic sequences were very different. Which conclusion cannot be made from this experiment?

Similar phenotypes are the result of the same genotypes.

RNA is a multifaceted molecule and key component to the success of life. Which statement about RNA is most accurate? Please choose the correct answer from the following choices, and then select the submit answer button. Answer choices

Some types of RNA can act much like protein enzymes.

Which event is likely to have preceded a major adaptive radiation?

The ability to lay water-retaining eggs on land evolves.

Newborn babies tend to latch onto and suck anything that touches the roof of their mouths without being taught this behavior. Why might this behavior have evolved to be innate?

The behavior ensures the baby will consume food from a breast, increasing its fitness. [[Innate suckling behavior provides a fitness advantage because babies that innately suckle receive more nutrients quickly, which can increase their likelihood of survival.

Which statement is false regarding the history of organism classification?

The current system division is based on two groups—prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

Under what conditions might the morphological species concept be used instead of the biological species concept?

The fossils of the species are similar, but evidence for reproductive isolation between them is unclear.

The Amish have historically been a small, isolated population in the United States. Within this population, there is a different frequency of alleles than there is throughout the population of southern Germany and Switzerland, from which the Amish came. Given this information, how is it possible that polydactyly, or the condition where people have extra fingers and toes, is more common within this group?

The founder effect, a special case of genetic drift, resulted in the fact that the trait caused by the allele for polydactyly occurs more frequently in the Amish.

In a large population of randomly breeding foxes, a dominant allele results in a soft, brown pelt, while a recessive allele results in a rough, grey pelt. The dominant allele is found in 80% of the population while the recessive allele is found in 20%. There is no migration, drift, or selection in the population. When human beings enter this habitat, they selectively hunt foxes with brown pelts. After many generations of this activity, how will this population change?

The frequency of the recessive allele will rise above 20%, while the dominant allele will decrease below 80%.

Which statement regarding the importance of Darwin's theory of evolution is true?

The idea that species are descended from a common ancestor, and that they change over time, has allowed for major advancements in biological and medical research.

Which statement about wings is false?

The most recent common ancestor of bats and insects had wings.

Which proposed method is most likely to give rise to a large population of smaller-than-average dogs after 20 generations?

(1) Start with a large population of dogs of varying sizes. (2) When selecting the dogs to breed in order to generate a new generation, choose dogs in the lowest 20% with respect to body size. (3) Repeat this for multiple generations.

A radioactive isotope has a half-life of 1 billion years. A rock originally contained 50 grams of radioactive isotope, and now contains 6.25 grams. Approximately how many years old is the rock?

3 billon years

Which statement about insects is false?

All insects have three life stages: larva, pupa, and adult.

Which explanation best supports the statement: "Humans and other animals don't consciously try to maximize their reproductive success, but their behaviors would suggest otherwise."

An animal that experiences pleasure when it has sex has the incentive to seek out additional opportunities to experience that pleasure, without seeking a reproductive outcome.

True or false: Animals with backbones are more evolutionarily successful than organisms without backbones.

False. Each species exhibits adaptations that best suit their environment.

Which statement best explains why fins and jaws evolved in a parallel manner?

Fins and jaws work together; fins get you to the organism you are going to eat, and jaws capture and kill it.

Which best explains the age-old idea that a male should court and/or compete for a female?

For males to be most successful, in terms of reproduction, they need to find and gain access to mating opportunities with additional females.

While visiting Argentina, Darwin discovered the fossils of extinct glyptodonts, which resembled the living armadillos in that same area. What did he deduce after making these observations?

Glyptodonts were ancient relatives of the armadillo.

Why do human taste preferences exist?

Human feeding choices influence energy intake and, consequently, fitness.

Which statement about ctenophores is true?

It is possible that the ctenophore nervous system evolved independently from the nervous system found in the common ancestor of all animals except for sponges.

Why is it so much easier for an infant to learn a complex language than for a college student to learn biology?

Language provides evolutionary advantages, whereas learning biology does not provide an evolutionary advantage.

Which explanation best supports the idea that males are more sexually willing than females?

Males are only more sexually willing than females in situations where the female has greater energetic investment in reproduction.

Which statement does NOT support the idea that many behaviors in the animal kingdom that appear truly altruistic (unselfish behavior with absolutely no benefit) are really not so?

Many animals will put themselves in danger to assist a member of a different species.

Which statement about invertebrates is true?

More than 95% of the animal kingdom is made up of invertebrates.

Which is not likely to be an innate behavior?

Birds avoid eating distinctively colored monarch butterflies because they taste bad.

What is the key difference between protostomes and deuterostomes?

The protostome gut develops from front to back, so the first opening is the mouth. The deuterostome gut develops back to front, and the second opening becomes the mouth.

Why is the term "worm" considered misleading in an evolutionary sense?

The three phyla we call worms are less closely related to one another than they are to other phyla.

Sea stars, a type of echinoderm, are seemingly harmless organisms. Which, if any, is a defense/predation mechanism of the sea star?

The tube feet are used to pull apart shells and the stomach can be pushed out through the mouth to aid in digestion of the prey within the shell.

A dog and a pig attempt to mate. We are aware that these are two different animal species. But what is the best explanation for the barrier that makes it impossible for them to successfully mate?

There is a prezygotic barrier between the two animals: the male's reproductive cell cannot fertilize the female's reproductive cell.

Which statement about mutations is most accurate?

Whether or not a mutation occurs is not related to how useful or harmful the mutation may be.

Among this group of organisms, which would be considered the "fittest" organism?

a small black spider that hatches 100 spiderlings

Compare these lists, and choose the one that contains the three most common types of animal communication.

acoustic, visual, and chemical

If a local climate grows wetter and a river splits the habitat in two, a single population of organisms can be split into two separate populations. These populations will have different evolutionary paths over time, to the point where they may no longer be able to interbreed. What is this an example of?

allopatric speciation

It is mistakenly believed that the rapid evolutionary changes of punctuated equilibrium are the result of some mechanism of evolution other than natural selection, thus seeming to undermine evolutionary theory. This belief is mistaken because:

although the punctuated change appears inordinately fast on a geological time scale, the per-generation rates of change to produce it are relatively slow, much the same as the rates that have been measured for evolving populations.

In addition to spontaneously forming into spheres, similar to cellular membranes, microspheres also:

appear to divide.

Experiments in the selection of fruit flies for starvation resistance:

are testable and reproducible.

The biological species concept cannot be applied to:

asexual, bacterial, or extinct organisms.

Researchers transplanted older female Belding's ground squirrels from their original colonies to new colonies where they had no relatives. These transplanted older females were shown to:

be likely to make alarm calls when they saw predators.

Birds are grouped with turtles, lizards, snakes, alligators, and crocodiles. Birds, however, have feathers and can generate their own body heat, which other reptiles cannot do. Which likely explains the original evolutionary function of feathers in early reptiles?

behavioral displays

Which characteristic could NOT be used to differentiate the three worm phyla, Annelida, Platyhelminthes, and Nematoda?

bilateral symmetry

The notochord that characterizes all chordates at some stage in their life cycle provides all of the following functions except:

bony protection for the nerve cord.

Which term is the best match for the statement: "Natural selection can act on different anatomical starting material to produce modifications that serve similar purposes"?

convergent evolution

In comparing the streamlined nature of a dolphin and that of a shark, you conclude that the streamline feature evolved independently in sharks and dolphins. This common characteristic most likely is the result of:

convergent evolution.

Which pair of anatomical features is considered analogous?

dragonfly wings and bird wings

Which is the greatest advantage of radial symmetry?

evenly distributed appendages and sense organs, facilitating movement in any direction

Which of these is NOT an example of evolution directly observable to scientists?

evolution of the insect wing from thermodynamically effective wing nubs

Genetic drift is best described as:

evolutionary change due to random events.

Which would NOT be classified as an arthropod?

giant clam

Which is NOT typically a form of animal communication?

increased heart rate and metabolic rate

Which pair of organisms is probably monophyletic?

large cactus finch, vampire finch

Trichinella worms sometimes cause the disease known as trichinosis in humans when undercooked pork is eaten. These organisms have long cylindrical bodies but no segmentation. This species is most similar to which animal?

nematodes

Researchers have found that mixtures of _____ placed in water or salt solutions tend to spontaneously form small spherical units that resemble living cells.

phospholipids

Studies have shown that rats are quicker to associate certain tastes with a subsequent illness and then avoid those taste in the future, than they are to associate other stimulus such as light or sound with a subsequent illness. It is likely that taste aversion in rats is:

prepared learning, because taste aversion relates to avoiding poisonous food, which would have an effect on reproductive fitness.

Which characteristic is NOT common to all chordates (at some point in their development)?

presence of vertebrae

Which correctly pairs a stage of arthropod metamorphosis with its most significant change at that stage?

pupa: body structures of the larva are broken down and reassembled

In a cold environment, the precursor molecules of life could have been kept in close enough proximity to react together by being trapped in ice. This is in contrast to the conventional assumption that:

some sort of chamber or sphere may have spontaneously formed to contain precursors.

Evolution can occur when certain individuals in a population are born with characteristics that make them more likely to:

survive and reproduce compared to other individuals in the population.

According to W. D. Hamilton, the more closely related two individuals are:

the more likely they are to act altruistically toward each other.

In polygynous mating systems:

there is usually greater variation in reproductive success among males than among females.

The most ancient branching point in the phylogeny of animals is the one that distinguishes between having:

true tissues or no tissues.