anthro chapter 2

The scientist whose work provided the foundation for later understandings of genetics was:

Gregor Mendel.

Uniformitarianism, an important idea in geology, was proposed by these two scientists:

Hutton and Lyell.

Why didnt Darwin use Mendels results when formulating his theory of evolution by natural selection?

Mendels work was not well known until many years after Darwin published his theory of evolution.

mutation

a random change in a gene or chromosome, creating a new trait that may be advantageous, deleterious, or neutral in its effects on the organism.

Which of the following is a correct assessment of the evolutionary synthesis?

the integration of Darwinism and genetics.

Which of the following findings by early researchers is most true according to the basic principles of modern genetics?

the mother and father contribute equally to the genetic makeup of a child.

natural selection

the process by which some organisms, with heritable features that are adapted to the environment, preferentially survive and reproduce, there by increasing the frequency of those features in the population.

genetic drift

the random change in allele frequency from one generation to the next, with greater effect in small populations.

The only source of new genetic material is:

mutation.

The individual genotypes in a breeding population taken as a whole, are the:

gene pool.

Darwinian evolution proposes that:

species adapt and change over time based on the environment.

Which of the following disciplines did Darwin draw information from in order to found the field of evolutionary biology and develop his theory?

systematics, geology, demography, paleontology, and taxonomy.

taxonomy

the classification of organisms into a system that reflects degree of relatedness.

adaptive radiation

the diversification of an ancestral species into new species that are adapted to diverse environmental niches.

demography

the study of a populations features and vital statistics, including birth rate, death rate, population size, and population density.

systematics

the study of classification of living organisms to determine their evolutionary relationships with one another.

geology

the study of earths physical history.

paleontology

the study of extinct life-forms through the analysis of fossils.

During which century did Charles Darwin come up with his theory?

19th century.

The forces of evolution include:

natural selection, gene flow, genetic drift, and mutations.

What did Darwin think was the primary mechanism or cause of evolution?

natural selection.

Adaptive radiation occurs when:

one species produces multiple closely related species.

What are three observations of natural selection?

organisms produce more offspring, populations vary, and traits are inherited.

Which of the following are observations made by Thomas Malthus?

population is limited by the food supply, members of a population compete for access to food, and individuals who are able to feed their offspring survive and reproduce.

gene flow

admixture, or the exchange of alleles between two populations.

The different variants or forms of a single gene are known as:

alleles.

adaptations

changes in physical structure, function, or behavior in a population of organisms that allow or enhance survival in a given environment.

The ship on which Darwin took his voyage was called the HMS:

Beagle.

The study of taxonomy was enriched by the work of:

Carolus Linnaeus.

Which of the following are causes of evolution?

natural selection, gene flow, genetic drift, and mutation.

catastrophism

developed by Georges Cuvier; the theory that events like volcanoes, earthquakes, and floods are responsible for geologic changes throughout Earth's history.

uniformitarianism

developed by James Hutton; the theory that processes that occurred in the geologic past are still at work the same way today, and that many are still observable.

Lamarckism

developed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck; the theory that evolution occurs when characteristics that are acquired during ones lifetime are passed on to the next generation.

Charles Darwin was the founder of which of the following fields?

evolutionary biology.

Darwin first based his observations about physical variation on differences between:

finches.

Darwin called the units of inheritance that pass traits from parents to offspring:

gemmules.

What drove Darwin to finally publish his ideas nearly two decades after he began his background research?

he feared that someone else would publish the same theory before him.

evolutionary biology

the study of the process of change in organisms.

Zoonosis is:

the transfer of pathogens from other animals to humans.