Bio Final - Test 1

There have been six mass extinction in the last 600 million years. Roughly how many years does it take to recove the lost biodiversity after a mass extinction

10,000,000

Fossil and genetic evidence strongly support the idea that modern humans

All derive from a single african lineage that spread from there into other parts of the world starting about 85000 to 60000 years ago

The first organisms recorded in the fossil record were most likely...

Anaerobic Bacteria

Ribozymes

Catalyze chemical reactions but do not contain amino acids

Which of the following could provide the best data for determining the phylogeny of very closely related species?

Comparison of nucleotide sequences in homologous genes and mitochondrial DNA

Which of the following statements would Darwin has disagreed with

Descent with modification occurs through inheritance of acquired characteristics

Which of the following is an example of allopatric speciation?

Grand Canyon Squirrels

You set your time machine for 3 billion years ago and push the start button. When the dust clears, you look out the window. Which of the following describes what you probably see?

Green scum in the water

Of the options listed below, which two Homo species migrated out of Africa beginning about the time noted for the start of their migration

H. erectus (2 MYA) and H. sapiens (.1 MYA)

Which of the following is an example of a postzygotic reproductive barier?

Hybrid offspring of two species of jimsonweeds always die before reproducing

If you had to choose, where would you rather get infected with a serious bacterial disease?

In a remote, sparsely populated area where the bacteria have not been exposed to antibiotic drugs

The fact that the hand of man, the wing of the bat, and the limb of the alligator all have the same bones in the same relative positions

Is explained by common descent of all these organism from a primitive reptile

The data here show the frequencies of the two morphs of Biston Betularia - carbonaria, the dark form, and typical the light spotted form from 1950 to 2000, when oil was replacing coal as a heating fuel in the country. These data based upon experiments by Michael Majerus were inteded to check the validity of earlier experiments of this type done by kettlewell. Kettlewell's data was questioned because of which reason listed below:

Kettelwell used lab grown and wild populations of moths mixed together

The cambrian explosion describes the time when

Many of the body plans for modern organisms appeared in the fossil record, including the ancestor of vertebrates

Which describes the relationship between mutation and natural selection?

Mutation creates variation within a population and increases the chance of survival of a population in a changing enviornment

Wallace wrote that after a long period of natural selection "the superior variety would then alone remain, and would have replaced the original species." Which of the following would be a good addition to this statement?

Of course, this does not rule out that the original species might live on elsewhere, where conditions were different since the beginning.

The fundamental idea in biology that enables us to explain the diverse life forms on earth is that

Populations undergo descent from one generation to the next, with modification

Deep branch points near the base, or trunk of an evolutionary tree represent ________, while branch points near the tips of the branches represent __________.

Relatively ancient common ancestors... relatively recent common ancestors

The human fossil record shows

That at several times there were more than one hominid species alive on the earth at the same time

Coevolution is

The evolution of two populations of different species in response to selection pressures that infividuals from the two populations place on each other

One of the most important clues indicating that A. afarensis (Lucy) walked on two legs is:

The structure of Lucy's feet are more human-like than chimpanzee-like

The picture on the right was taken underwater and shows a large number of fish of the same species forming a circle or spiral. Which is the best description of what is going on.

These fish swim, stick close to their own kind, and imitate what their neighbors do. The result is a swirling circular gathering.

Under what circumstances can simple chance affect the frequency of genes in a population?

When the population is very small thus amplifying the effect of random chance

Which of the following lcues would tell you whether a cell is prokaryotic or eukaryotic

Whether or not the cell is partitioned by internal membranes

An emergent property is

a situation where the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts.

Biologists have found more than 500 species of fruit flies on the varius hawaian islands, all aparantly descended from a single ancestor species. This example illustrates

adaptive radiation

Natural selection is sometimes described as survival of the fittest. Which of the following best measures an organisms fitness?

how many fertile offspring it produces

Evolution is promoted in a natural population

if some genotypes produce phenotypes that are more adaptive than other phenotypes

Drought conditions in the galapagos islands during the 1970s cause a drop in the populations of grasses and other plants that produce small seeds, but was not so drastic in affecting plants that produce large seeds. This had the following effect on the finches of the islands

increased the size of beaks

Extinction of a species is not uncommon throughout evolutionary time. In fact,

it is extimated over 99% of all species that ever lived are extinct

A species is composed of

populations that have the potential to interbreed and produce fertile offspring

In an area of erratic rainfall, a biologist found that grass plants with alleles for curled leaves reproduced better in dry years, and plants with alleles for flat leaves reproduced better in wet years. This situation would tend to

preserve genetic variation in the grass population

Ancient photosynthetic prokaryotes were very important in the history of life because they

produced the oxygen in the atmosphere

Birth weight in humans is the result of

stabilizing selection

The north american pronghorn far outraces any predators remaining on the North American continent. If maintaining this speed means bearing fewer offspring, which of the following is the most likely to happen given enough time:

this species will slow down