MOD 7 Quizzes

What is the typical mutation rate within a cell?

1/100,000

Which of the following examples is one of genetic drift?

A forest fire kills all plant life south of a highway.

Two species are said to be closely related if they

A. possess a common ancestor.

In the figure shown here, ___ and ___ have a common shared derived trait that is not possessed by ____.

B. Y; Z; X

What characteristic do a bottleneck and a founder effect have in common?

Both involve a decrease in a population's genetic diversity.

Convergent evolution gives rise to analogous structures in unrelated taxa.

Convergent evolution gives rise to analogous structures in unrelated taxa.

The molecule cytochrome c supports the theory of evolution as biochemical evidence. Which of the following is not part of that evidence?

Cytochrome c has evolved multiple times among many species.

The finches of the Galápagos islands evolved as a result of what type(s) of speciation?

D. both allopatric speciation and adaptive radiation

Which event was not involved in the Permian mass extinction?

E. a large meteor impact

Which of the following lists the levels of taxonomic classification in order from the most inclusive to the least inclusive?

E. domain - kingdom - phylum - class - order

Why do prokaryotes and eukaryotes differ in their reliance on mutations for generating genetic variation?

Eukaryotes sexually reproduce, prokaryotes do not.

Which of the following cannot be determined from the fossil record?

Evidence of every species that ever existed.

Pinus strobus is the scientific name for the white pine. Pinus is the

Genus

What is the genotype of an individual that is lives in protection from both sickle cell disease and malaria?

HbAHbS

Which individual would be considered the fittest?

Individual that has the greatest number of offspring

Individuals who inherit sickle cell disease, a recessive disorder, tend to die at an early age while individuals who are homozygous for their blood cells survive. How does the recessive allele persist in the population?

Individuals who are heterozygous for the sickle cell trait have an advantage in certain environments.

Which of the following is not part of the punctuated equilibrium model?

It is difficult to determine when speciation occurred.

What influence did the writings of Thomas Malthus have on Darwin's ideas of natural selection?

Malthus showed how the human population grows faster than the food supply and that death and famine were inevitable.

Why does the malaria disease persist in the human population?

Multiple phenotypes survive in a balanced polymorphism.

Which one of the following statements is true?

Natural selection can only work on variation that already exists.

What do fossils of transitional links illustrate?

Shared characters of two distinct groups show that those groups are related.

Homologous structures

Structures in different species that are similar because of common ancestry.

The figure shown here represents stabilizing selection. What happens when an individual is produced that possesses a trait far away from the mean value?

That extreme individual will likely not survive and reproduce.

If a population lacks variation (fixed), no individual has any advantageous trait, and the environment changes for the worse. What will most likely happen to the population in terms of natural selection?

The entire population will go extinct.

Through observing the variation in snails, which individuals would you predict would most easily hide from predators if this population existed in variable (mixed patches of light and dark areas) environment?.

The multicolored (variable) snails would most easily hide from predators.

Significant mass extinctions occurred during which of the following epochs?

Triassic, Permian, Cretaceous, Pleistocene, Ordovician, and Devonian

The fossil similarity of the extinct glyptodont to the living, modern armadillo is an example of comparative anatomy.

True

Many people refer to Alfred Russel Wallace as the "Father of Biogeography." Which of the following contributions led Wallace to achieve this title?

Wallace described a sharp line dividing Australian species from Asian species.

A clade includes which of the following?

a common ancestor and all its descendant species

Broccoli, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, Chinese cabbage, and cauliflower were all derived from the single wild species. This diversity is a result of

artificial selection

The fact that DNA is the molecule containing the genetic code for all life on Earth is a part of

biochemical evidence

As you hike up a mountain, you realize that the plants and animals present at the base are not the same as those at the top. This observation is the basis of

biogeography

When comparing chick and pig embryos, the similar eyes, pharyngeal pouches, and post-anal tails are evidence of

common ancestry

The forelimbs of manatees, penguins, seals, and sea turtles are all flipper-shaped. This is an example of

convergent evolution to a structure permitting movement in water.

British land snails primarily occur in two extreme phenotypes. This is an example of

disruptive selection

In the figure shown here, flower color of a population is distributed in a bell-shaped normal curve. If the white and yellow flower colors increase in frequency in the population, this would illustrate

disruptive selection

The sugar glider in Australia and the flying squirrel in North America are both small mammals with large expanses of loose skin between their fore- and hind-limbs allowing them to glide from tree to tree within their respective forest habitats. These two species are distantly related but are very similar in their overall appearance. Darwin's explanation for their similarity is that

each have adapted in very similar ways to similar habitats.

Which of the following correctly reflects the division of the history of life on Earth, from most inclusive to least inclusive?

era, period, epoch

The artificial selection of different breeds of dogs is an example of speciation.

false

Three species that arose as a result of adaptive radiation are organized on a cladogram. On this cladogram, two of the species would likely share several characters not present in the third.

false

What characteristics of Archaeopteryx tell us that it is a link to reptiles and birds?

feathers and teeth

All of the genes and all of their associated alleles within a population represent the population's

gene pool

A fraction of the original green frog population survives to reproduce and generate the new population. If the survivors of the original population survived by chance, then this event is an example of

genetic drift

A major difference between allopatric and sympatric speciation is whether

geographic isolation is required or not

The wing of a penguin and the wing of an eagle are

homologous structures.

Wings of insects and birds are result of convergent evolution. This means that

insects and birds have each independently evolved structures that serve the same function (flight) but have done so in very different ways.

In the figure shown here, the bell-shaped curve representing the population illustrates that

most individuals are pink, few individuals are yellow or white.

In the process of natural selection, individuals that are most fit are the ones that are

most likely to reproduce.

Which of the following does not result in a decrease of genetic variation?

mutation

If the survivors of an original population survived due to specific phenotypes that they possessed, then this event is an example of

natural selection

In random mating

no selective mating in which animals chose mate depending on phenotype

If people with freckles preferentially mate with other people with freckles, this would be an example of

nonrandom mating

Although Lamarck hypothesized that adaptations to the environment did occur, he also believed that

offspring inherited characteristics acquired by their parents during their lifetime.

Which of the following is NOT a step in the process of natural selection?

people select which individuals breed and which ones do not

Microevolution is not influenced by which of the following?

random mating

All of the following are criteria by which a species may be defined EXCEPT

reproductive isolation

The effects of genetic drift are more significant in

small populations

One species forming multiple new species is called

speciation

In the figure shown here, flower color of a population is distributed in a bell-shaped normal curve. If the pink flower color increases in frequency in the population, this would illustrate

stabilizing selection

Which of the following concepts would not have been supported by Georges Cuvier?

that the Earth and its organisms slowly changed through time.

In the figure shown here, the letter W represents which of the following?

the common ancestor for Y and Z

The term parsimony implies that

the fewer assumptions that are made, the more probable the conclusion.

Directional selection in the modern horse is demonstrated by

the gradual increase in size over time

Which is not an important characteristic of the Galápagos Islands in the context of Darwin's theory of evolution?

the multiple islands all had an identical environment.

Monkeys in the New World (the Americas) have prehensile tails, strong flexible tails that grip branches and operate much like another hand while Old World (Africa and Asia) monkeys do not have such a tail. The explanation for this is

the prehensile tail evolved in New World monkeys after the Americas separated from Africa and Asia.

Allopatric speciation is compatible with both the gradualistic and punctuated equilibrium models of evolution.

true

Cladograms show the sequence of evolution of characters in a clade.

true

Given the comparative study of embryology, it is concluded that genes controlling embryonic development are essentially the same.

true

A zygote fails to undergo mitosis because of a mismatched numbers of chromosomes. This is an example of

zygote mortality