AP Bio Chapters 19 and 20
During a study session about evolution, one of your fellow students remarks, "The giraffe stretched its neck while reaching for higher leaves; its offspring inherited longer necks as a result." Which statement is most likely to be helpful in correcting this student's misconception? A) Characteristics acquired during an organism's life are generally not passed on through genes. B) Spontaneous mutations can result in the appearance of new traits. C) Only favorable adaptations have survival value. D) Disuse of an organ may lead to its eventual disappearance. E) If the giraffes did not have to compete with each other, longer necks would not have been passed on to the next generation.
A
What was the prevailing belief prior to the time of Lyell and Darwin? A) Earth is a few thousand years old, and populations are unchanging. B) Earth is a few thousand years old, and populations gradually change. C) Earth is millions of years old, and populations rapidly change. D) Earth is millions of years old, and populations are unchanging. E) Earth is millions of years old, and populations gradually change.
A
Which extinct species should be the best candidate to serve as the outgroup for the clade whose common ancestor occurs at position 2 in Figure 26.1? A) A B) B C) C D) D E) E
A
Which kind of DNA should provide the best molecular clock for determining the evolutionary relatedness of several species whose common ancestor became extinct billions of years ago? A) that coding for ribosomal RNA B) intronic DNA belonging to a gene whose product performs a crucial function C) paralogous DNA that has lost its function (i.e., no longer codes for functional gene product) D) mitochondrial DNA E) exonic DNA that codes for a noncrucial part of a polypeptide
A
Which of the following must exist in a population before natural selection can act upon that population? A) genetic variation among individuals B) variation among individuals caused by environmental factors C) sexual reproduction D) Three of the responses are correct. E) Two of the responses are correct.
A
Which of the following pairs are the best examples of homologous structures? A) bones in the bat wing and bones in the human forelimb B) owl wing and hornet wing C) bat wing and bird wing D) eyelessness in the Australian mole and eyelessness in the North American mole
A
Which of these conditions should completely prevent the occurrence of natural selection in a population over time? A) All variation between individuals is due only to environmental factors. B) The environment is changing at a relatively slow rate. C) The population size is large. D) The population lives in a habitat where there are no competing species present.
A
Catastrophism, meaning the regular occurrence of geological or meteorological disturbances (catastrophes), was Cuvier's attempt to explain the existence of A) evolution. B) the fossil record. C) uniformitarianism. D) the origin of new species. E) natural selection.
B
Members of two different species possess a similar-looking structure that they use in a similar fashion to perform the same function. Which information would best help distinguish between an explanation based on homology versus one based on convergent evolution? A) The two species live at great distance from each other. B) The two species share many proteins in common, and the nucleotide sequences that code for these proteins are almost identical. C) The sizes of the structures in adult members of both species are similar in size. D) Both species are well adapted to their particular environments.
B
What must be true of any organ that is described as vestigial? A) It must be analogous to some feature in an ancestor. B) It must be homologous to some feature in an ancestor. C) It must be both homologous and analogous to some feature in an ancestor. D) It need be neither homologous nor analogous to some feature in an ancestor.
B
Which of the following is not an observation or inference on which natural selection is based? A) There is heritable variation among individuals. B) Poorly adapted individuals never produce offspring. C) Species produce more offspring than the environment can support. D) Individuals whose characteristics are best suited to the environment generally leave more offspring than those whose characteristics are less well suited. E) Only a fraction of an individual's offspring may survive.
B
Which of the following represents an idea that Darwin learned from the writings of Thomas Malthus? A) Technological innovation in agricultural practices will permit exponential growth of the human population into the foreseeable future. B) Populations tend to increase at a faster rate than their food supply normally allows. C) Earth changed over the years through a series of catastrophic upheavals. D) The environment is responsible for natural selection. E) Earth is more than 10,000 years old.
B
Both ancestral birds and ancestral mammals shared a common ancestor that was terrestrial. Today, penguins (which are birds) and seals (which are mammals) have forelimbs adapted for swimming. What term best describes the relationship of the bones in the forelimbs of penguins and seals, and what term best describes the flippers of penguins and seals? A) homologous; homologous B) analogous; homologous C) homologous; analogous D) analogous; analogous
C
If you were using cladistics to build a phylogenetic tree of cats, which of the following would be the best outgroup? A) lion B) domestic cat C) wolf D) leopard E) tiger
C
In the mid-1900s, the Soviet geneticist Lysenko believed that his winter wheat plants, exposed to ever-colder temperatures, would eventually give rise to ever more cold-tolerant winter wheat. Lysenko's attempts in this regard were most in agreement with the ideas of A) Cuvier. B) Hutton. C) Lamarck. D) Darwin. E) Lyell.
C
The common ancestors of birds and mammals were very early (stem) reptiles, which almost certainly possessed three-chambered hearts (two atria, one ventricle). Birds and mammals, however, are alike in having four-chambered hearts (two atria, two ventricles). The four-chambered hearts of birds and mammals are best described as A) structural homologies. B) vestiges. C) homoplasies. D) the result of shared ancestry. E) molecular homologies.
C
The following questions refer to Figure 22.1, which shows an outcrop of sedimentary rock whose strata are labeled AD. 38) If x indicates the location of fossils of two closely related species, then fossils of their most-recent common ancestor are most likely to occur in which stratum? A) A B) B C) C D) D
C
The most important feature that permits a gene to act as a molecular clock is A) having a large number of base pairs. B) having a larger proportion of exonic DNA than of intronic DNA. C) having a reliable average rate of mutation. D) its recent origin by a gene-duplication event. E) its being acted upon by natural selection.
C
The rise of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can be considered to be an example of artificial selection because A) humans purposefully raise MRSA in large fermenters in an attempt to make the bacteria ever-more resistant. B) S. aureus is cultivated by humans to replenish the soil with nutrients. C) humans synthesize methicillin and create environments in which bacteria frequently come into contact with methicillin. D) Humans are becoming resistant to bacteria by taking methicillin.
C
The role that humans play in artificial selection is to A) determine who lives and who dies. B) create the genetic variants, which nature then selects. C) choose which organisms breed, and which do not. D) train organisms to breed more successfully. E) perform artificial insemination.
C
When it acts upon a gene, which of the following processes consequently makes that gene an accurate molecular clock? A) transcription B) directional natural selection C) mutation D) proofreading E) reverse transcription
C
When using a cladistic approach to systematics, which of the following is considered most important for classification? A) shared primitive characters B) analogous primitive characters C) shared derived characters D) the number of homoplasies E) overall phenotypic similarity
C
Which of Darwin's ideas had the strongest connection to Darwin having read Malthus's essay on human population growth? A) descent with modification B) variation among individuals in a population C) struggle for existence D) the ability of related species to be conceptualized in "tree thinking" E) that the ancestors of the Galápagos finches had come from the South American mainland
C
Which of the following statements most detracts from the claim that the human appendix is a completely vestigial organ? A) The appendix can be surgically removed with no immediate ill effects. B) The appendix might have been larger in fossil hominids. C) The appendix has a substantial amount of defensive lymphatic tissue. D) Individuals with a larger-than-average appendix leave fewer offspring than those with a below-average-sized appendix. E) In a million years, the human species might completely lack an appendix.
C
If Figure 26.1 is an accurate depiction of relatedness, then which of the following should be correct? 1. The entire tree is based on maximum parsimony. 2. If all species depicted here make up a taxon, this taxon is monophyletic. 3. The last common ancestor of species B and C occurred more recently than the last common ancestor of species D and E. 4. Species A is the direct ancestor of both species B and species C. 5. The species present at position 3 is ancestral to C, D, and E. A) 1 and 3 B) 3 and 4 C) 2, 3, and 4 D) 1, 2, and 3
D
Some molecular data place the giant panda in the bear family (Ursidae) but place the lesser panda in the raccoon family (Procyonidae). Consequently, the morphological similarities of these two species are probably due to A) inheritance of acquired characteristics. B) sexual selection. C) inheritance of shared derived characters. D) possession of analogous structures. E) possession of shared primitive characters.
D
The next question refer to the following table, which compares the % sequence homology of four different parts (two introns and two exons) of a gene that is found in five different eukaryotic species. Each part is numbered to indicate its distance from the promoter (e.g., Intron I is the one closest to the promoter). The data reported for species A were obtained by comparing DNA from one member of species A to another member of species A. 67) Regarding these sequence homology data, the principle of maximum parsimony would be applicable in A) distinguishing introns from exons. B) determining degree of sequence homology. C) selecting appropriate genes for comparison among species. D) inferring evolutionary relatedness from the number of sequence differences.
D
There is some evidence that reptiles called cynodonts may have had whisker-like hairs around their mouths. If true, then what can be properly said of hair? A) It is a shared derived character of mammals, even if cynodonts continue to be classified as reptiles. B) It is a shared derived character of the amniote clade, and not of the mammal clade. C) It is a shared ancestral character of the amniote clade, but only if cynodonts are reclassified as mammals. D) It is a shared derived character of the mammals, but only if cynodonts are reclassified as mammals.
D
Natural selection is based on all of the following except A) genetic variation exists within populations. B) the best-adapted individuals tend to leave the most offspring. C) individuals who survive longer tend to leave more offspring than those who die young. D) populations tend to produce more individuals than the environment can support. E) individuals adapt to their environments and, thereby, evolve.
E
Of the following anatomical structures, which is homologous to the bones in the wing of a bird? A) cartilage in the dorsal fin of a shark B) bones in the hind limb of a kangaroo C) chitinous struts in the wing of a butterfly D) bony rays in the tail fin of a flying fish E) bones in the flipper of a whale
E
The importance of computers and of computer software to modern cladistics is most closely linked to advances in A) light microscopy. B) radiometric dating. C) fossil discovery techniques. D) Linnaean classification. E) molecular genetics.
E
Which kingdom has been replaced with two domains? A) Plantae B) Fungi C) Animalia D) Protista E) Monera
E