BI112 Final

Definition: Groups of actually or potentially interbreeding natural populations which are reproductively isolated from other such groups.

Mayr's Biological Species Concept

Postulate: A population of organisms has the tendency and the potential to increase at a geometric rate. Theory?

Natural Selection

Postulate: The environments of most organisms have been in constant change throughout geologic time. Theory?

Natural Selection

Which of the following phenomena is thought to be an emergent property of the event described by the Giant Impact Hypothesis?

Sea levels rise and fall as a result of gravitational forces exerted by the Moon and the Sun, and the rotation of Earth.

How do inactive genes get turned back on?

Signals from the environment or cells activate transcription factors (proteins) which bind to regulatory regions and determine transcription level.

Term for viruses that infect bacteria

bacteriophage

Botanists estimate that one-half to two-thirds of flowering plants are ___, including more than 80% of grasses.

polyploid

A mule is a sterile hybrid born to a female horse that mated with a male donkey. Mule sterility is an example of:

postzygotic isolation

Evolutionary theory predicts that interspecific competition ...

potentially limits the fitness of all participants, and thus adaptations that minimize competition are considered to be adaptive.

Postulate: Evolution continues today in generally the same manner as during preceding geologic eras. Theory?

Descent with Modification

The axiom that all life evolved from one or a few simple kinds of organisms is a postulate of the theory of _____

Descent with Modification

The potential for competition increases with...

... increasing phenotypic similarity.

Natural selection results in...

...adaptive change in allele frequencies within a population.

Currently, the most widely accepted higher classification system, divides all living organisms into_______.

3 Domains

The oldest known fossils are approximately ____ years old and are thought to be the preserved remnants of _____.

3.4 billion, prokaryotes

How old is earth?

4.5 billion years

Which CANNOT evolve via natural selection?

A lethal sperm cell mutation.

One characteristic of living cells is that they pump ions across a membrane to generate an electrochemical gradient, then use that gradient to make the energy-rich molecule _____.

ATP

All available evidence, including genetic, morphological, and functional, indicates that you share one of the characteristics from the list below with Bacteria and Archaea.

ATP synthase inherited from a common ancestor.

Because variants of a complex molecule called _____, which is responsible for an energy-storing phosphorylation reactions, are found in Archaea, Bacteria, and Eukarya, evolutionary biologists theorize that it was also present in LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor) and may have evolved in the LUCA lineage. Therefore, variants found in these groups are the product of ______.

ATP synthase, divergence

The first published manuscript on natural selection, "On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural means of selection,: was co-authored in 1858 by Charles Darwin and _____

Alfred Russel Wallace

Definition: Two species that use a limiting resource in the same way cannot coexist indefinitely. Principle?

Competitive Exclusion

Which CANNOT continue to evolve via natural selection?

An allele carried by all members of a population involving oxidative metabolism regulation (assuming no further mutations arise).

Which of the following traits can evolve via natural selection?

An enzyme variant that improves digestive efficiency for a subset of a population that inherited the variant.

It is apparent from the micrograph below that the ribosomes account for much of the biomass of a bacterial cell. Why is this the case?

As the site of protein synthesis, ribosomes produce the structural proteins required to build and replicate cells and the enzymes required for life to proceed.

Many organisms that are capable of asexual and sexual reproduction utilize environmental signals to determine when to switch from one mode to the other. Typically, signals such as food shortage and/or rapidly changing environmental conditions induce a change in populations from ____ reproduction.

Asexual to sexual

The figure below shows a small colony of algal cells that is surrounded by bacterial cells. Why are chemoheterotrophic bacteria densities often very high around phytoplankton cells?

Because algal cell membranes leak out large volumes of photosynthate (products of photosynthesis) which the bacteria use for energy.

Prochlorococcus marinus, a cyanobacterium, is the smallest known primary producer. It dominates production in low-nutrient, open ocean habitats due in part to an advantage it has over larger species. Which of the following statements best explains this advantage?

Because it has a relatively high surface area to volume ratio, and thus a relatively high mass-specific nutrient uptake rate, a P. marinus cell has an advantage over larger cells when nutrients are scarce.

The study of the distribution of species and ecosystems in geographic space and through geological time.

Biogeography

Methanogenesis, which commonly occurs deep in the sediments beneath aquatic habitats, is an ecological function performed only by Archaea species. Which of the following reactions correctly depicts methanogenesis?

H2 + CO2 ->CH4 + H2O + energy

The hierarchical system of classifying and naming organisms which is in use today was originally developed by ___

Linnaeus

The most widely accepted theory about Earth's environment at the dawn of life is that the atmosphere was devoid of_____.

O2

Evidence suggests that genome duplication mutations can result in adaptive phenotypic outcomes. Which of the following processes describes our current understanding of how this occurs?

One gene copy maintains the ancestral function, while the other acquires a novel function.

Definition: a group of individuals of the same species that live within a particular area and interact with one another.

Population

Postulate: An individual with a phenotype that favors the production of more offspring will contribute a larger proportion of genes and gene combinations to its gene pool. Which theory?

Synthetic Theory of Evolution

Postulate: Speciation is completed when variations have accumulated in a species subpopulation such that genetic exchanges with the parent population, or with "sister" subpopulations, can no longer occur. Theory?

Synthetic Theory of Evolution

The most widely accepted theory about Earth's environment at the dawn of life is that the first molecules that contain nucleotides linked in a long chain were likely ____ due to the ability of these molecules to function as ____.

TNA, catalysts

The figure below presents data from an experiment showing that when cultured separately, populations of the diatoms Synedra and Asterionella grew to similar densities, but when cultured together, Asterionella populations went extinct while Synedra populations achieved steady densities. This experiment provides support for ____

The Principle of Competitive Exclusion

Darwin hypothesized that the finches of the Galapagos islands diverged from a common ancestor to fill open ecological niches in a process that we now call...

adaptive radiation

The Northern Spotted Owl and Mexican Spotted Owl arose from geographically isolated populations of the same ancestral owl species. The geographic ranges of the N. Spotted Owl and Mexican Spotted Owl are shown in the image. The evolution of the N. spotted owl and Mexican spotted owl is an example of...

allopatric speciation

The term ___ refers to polyploidy formed through the combined processes of interspecific hybridization and genome doubling.

allopoplyploidy

In 1953, Stanly Miller published a short paper describing the spark discharge synthesis of _____ from a gas mixture thought to represent Earth's early atmosphere. This experiment showed that the basic molecules of life could be synthesized from simple molecules suggesting Darwin's "warm little pond" was a feasible scenario.

amino acids

The purple bacterium Chromatium utilizes light energy to convert inorganic carbon (CO2) into organic molecules (CH2O) in a reaction termed ____.

anoxygenic photosynthesis

The main morphological characters used to differentiate Archaea and Bacteria cells involve differences in ______.

cell wall composition

The bacterium Gallionella ferruginea harvests electrons from inorganic ferrous iron (Fe2+) utilizing the chemical reaction illustrated below. Because it obtains energy through this reaction, G. ferruginea is classified as a _____.

chemoautotroph

Leptothrix and Gallionella are iron seep bacteria that obtain energy for growth from reactions that convert ferrous iron (Fe2+) to ferric iron (Fe3+) (see reaction in figure below). Therefore, these microbes are classified as _______.

chemoautotrops

Escherichia coli is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium that is commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded organisms. It derives energy from organic molecules in its environment, thus it is classified as a _______.

chemoheterotroph

The term ___ describes a phenomonon that occurs when two or more species reciprocally affect each other's evolution.

coevolution

Definition: a non-trophic interaction between individuals of two or more species in which all species are negatively affected by their shared use of a resource.

competition

The micrograph shows the process of ___ during which a donor cell (F+) transfers a ___ to a recipient cell.

conjugation, plasmid

1915, German meteorologist, geophysicist and polar researcher Alfred Wegener published a paper entitled 'The Origin of Continents and Oceans', which outlined his theory of _____. Wegener used fossil evidence and several lines of geomorphological evidence to support this theory which posited that Earth's land masses move slowly and independently around the planet.

continental drift

Iron oxidizing prokaryotes include species from two domains (Bacteria and Archaea) and seven phyla within these domains. The fact that this this shared trait (iron oxidation) occurs in distantly related lineages, all of which include species that do not oxidize iron, suggests that the presence of iron oxidation in these lineages is the result of a phenomenon commonly referred to as _____.

convergence

The tendency of distantly related organisms to evolve superficially similar characteristics under similar environmental conditions is called ____.

convergence

ATP synthase catalyzes a ______ reaction that converts _______.

phosphorylations, ADP to ATP

The purple bacterium Chromatium utilizes light energy to convert inorganic carbon (CO2) into organic molecules (CH2O). Therefore Chromatium is classified as a _____.

photoautotroph

Definition: the abiotic and biotic conditions that a species needs to grow, survive, and reproduce.

ecological niche

_____ is the study of heritable phenotype changes that do not involve alterations in the DNA sequence, i.e., a change in phenotype without a change in genotype -- which in turn affects how cells read the genes.

epigenetics

Archaea typically dominate microbial communities in habitats that feature extraordinary environmental conditions such as very high heat or salinity. Organisms that thrive in these hostile environments are commonly referred to as ______.

extremophiles

Most viruses are ___ in basic structure which is the most efficient symmetrical arrangement that linear subunits can take to form a shell with maximum internal capacity.

icosahedral

For gene acquisition via transformation to take place, the recipient bacteria cell must be ...

in a state of competence

Water flea populations typically alternate between an asexual reproductive phase and a sexual reproductive phase during their annual life histories. Phenotypic diversity in water flea populations tends to ____ following sexual reproductive phases.

increase

Natural selection acts on ....

individuals, and as a result, adaptive evolutionary change occurs in populations.

Paradigm: Autotrophs utilize ____ molecules to produce ___ compounds.

inorganic, organic

Bacteriophage "life" cycles typically include a stage in which the phage genes are inserted into the host genome, which results in phage genes being copied over and over as the bacteria population grows by cell division. This life stage is referred to as the _____.

lysogenic cycle

Bacteriophage "life" cycles typically include a stage in which the host bacterium bursts after many rounds of particle replication which do not involve replication of the host DNA. This life stage is referred to as the _____.

lytic cycle

Organisms are composed of atoms of a variety of elements, such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen, which are hypothesized to have first formed within ______.

massive stars

Haloquadratum walsbyi (Domain Archaea) is capable of harvesting energy from sunlight and from chemical bonds in organic molecules, thus it is categorized as _____.

mixotroph

Eutamias dorsalis is the only chipmunk species on Mountain 1 where it occupies both high and low elevation habitats. Eutamias quadrivittatus is the only chipmunk species on Mountain 2 where it occupies both high and low elevation habitats. Eutamias dorsalis and E. quadrivittatus occur in sympatry on Mountain 3. Where they co-occur, E. dorsalis only occupies lower elevation habitats while E. quadrivittatus only occupies high elevation habitats. Researchers hypothesize that the partitioning niches by these species suggests that their evolutionary histories included ______.

natural selection that increased the frequencies of traits that minimized interspecific competition.

The conversion of atmospheric N2 (dinitrogen) to NH3 ammonia (biological nitrogen fixation) requires a catalysts to proceed. Which of the following molecules serve as the catalyst in biological nitrogen fixation?

nitrogenase

Leptothrix and Gallionella are iron seep bacteria that obtain energy for growth from reactions that convert ferrous iron (Fe2+) to ferric iron (Fe3+) (see reaction in figure below). Specifically, these microbes obtain energy from _____.

oxidation reactions because electrons are harvested from Fe2+ and used to drive ATP synthesis

All organisms are largely comprised of the same elements in roughly the same proportions, i.e., we share a "core recipe." Which of the following elements is NOT one of the THREE most abundant elements in the core recipe?

phosphorous

A leading hypothesis about the origin of life on Earth posits that the common ancestor of all organisms (LUCA: the Last Universal Common Ancestor), utilized a natural _____ gradient present in hydrothermal vents to drive ATP synthesis.

proton

During a phenomenon called character displacement, competition causes the phenotypes of competing species to diverge over time, facilitating...

resource partitioning

The theory of plate tectonics posits that Earth's crust is comprised of discrete pieces (plates) that move independently as a result of which process? i.e., which process causes the plates to move?

seafloor spreading

Many haloarchaea are able to generate a proton gradient through the use rhodopsin proteins which capture ______.

solar (light) energy

Evidence of a parental germ-line cell mutation can be found by examining the DNA of its offspring's ___

somatic cells

According to the theory of plate tectonics, volcanic continental mountain ranges are formed as a result of _____.

subduction of oceanic plates below less dense continental plates which produces molten rock that rises to form volcanoes.

Diachasma alloeum is a parasitoid wasp that lays its eggs on Rhagoletis pommonella larvae. Both species have diverged into subspecies through a host shift by part of the R. pommonella population from hawthorn to apple. Like R. pommonella, D. alloeum has diverged into subspecies with the newly evolved subspecies parasitizing the newly evolved subspecies of R. pommonella that feeds on apples. Researchers suggest that the divergence and subsequent reproductive isolation of these species is evidence of ___ speciation in progress.

sympatric

Extensive evidence exists that a meteor impact 65 million years ago caused planet-wide environmental change which ultimately led to the extinction of approximately 76% of species on Earth, including many of the vertebrates we commonly refer to as dinosaurs. As a result of this massive impact event _____.

the descendants of surviving vertebrate species diverged through ecological opportunity and natural selection into lineages that include modern birds and mammals.

Term for the process by which a bacteria cell takes in naked DNA from the environment and incorporates it into its genome.

transformation

The figure below is a map of the presence or absence of 9 genes located on 4 chromosomes of a fish (spotted gar) and a human. This figure presents evidence that ___

two rounds of kisspeptin receptor (Kissr) gene duplication, with subsequent gene losses, occurred in the evolutionary history of a common ancestor of fish and mammals.