Chapter 22 Bio 2130

A farmer wishes to develop a strain of high-yield corn that is also resistant to drought. He has the following individuals from the current year's crop: Individual A—Yield: 179 bushels/acre; drought resistance: high Individual B—Yield: 220 bushels/acre; drought resistance: low Individual C—Yield: 185 bushels/acre; drought resistance: medium Individual D—Yield: 140 bushels/acre; drought resistance: high Individual E—Yield: 200 bushels/acre; drought resistance: medium Which of the following crosses would produce the highest corn yield with the highest resistance to drought?

A and E

Which of the following organisms could be produced by artificial selection?

A cow that produces a large quantity of milk.

Your cousin is a member of a team of scientists studying different species of fruit flies all over the world. Which continent should the team avoid?

Antarctica

Which of the following pieces of evidence most strongly supports the common origin of all life on Earth?

All organisms use essentially the same genetic code.

Which of these conditions should completely prevent the occurrence of evolution in a population over time?

All phenotypic variation between individuals is due only to environmental factors.

The scala naturae, or scale of nature, is based on the ideas of __________.

Aristotle

What happened in the soapberry bug population in central Florida when the bugs began to feed on smaller goldenrain tree fruits?

Bugs with shorter beaks had more access to food, allowing them to produce more offspring.

Structures as different as human arms, bat wings, and dolphin flippers contain many of the same bones, these bones having developed from very similar embryonic tissues. How do biologists interpret these similarities?

By the principle of convergent evolution by identifying the bones as being homologous structures (two of the statements above are correct)

The modern idea of extinction as a common occurrence in Earth's history was first proposed in the early 19th century writings of __________.

Cuvier

Examples of fossil records

discovery of shells of extinct species. discovery of transitional forms of horses,

Color is an inherited trait in beetles. If brown beetles move into a population from a nearby island, which of the following statements is correct?

Gene flow causes the frequency of the brown allele to increase.

Remember that color is an inherited trait in beetles. Which of the following is an example of natural selection?

Green beetles leave more offspring than brown beetles because they are better at finding food.

Which of the following statements is an accurate combination of postulates 1 and 2 of natural selection?

Heritable variation exists for traits among individuals in a population.

Which of the following statements is an accurate combination of postulates 3 and 4 of natural selection?

Individuals experience differential success in their ability to survive or reproduce.

What must be true of any organ that is described as vestigial?

It must be homologous to some feature in an ancestor.

Which pair of chickens should a farmer breed to produce larger chickens?

Large hen, large rooster

Which of the following is a key observation that must be explained in a unifying theory about life?

Many basic characteristics are shared by all living things.

The upper forelimbs of humans and bats have fairly similar skeletal structures, whereas the corresponding bones in whales have very different shapes and proportions. However, genetic data suggest that all three kinds of organisms diverged from a common ancestor at about the same time. Which of the following is the most likely explanation for these data?

Natural selection in an aquatic environment resulted in significant changes to whale forelimb anatomy.

Does the ability of a Mycobacterium tuberculosis cell to infect a new host depend on its drug-resistant phenotype?

No, drug-susceptible cells and drug-resistant cells are equally likely to infect a new host.

What insight did Darwin gain from reading Thomas Malthus's essay on human suffering?

Organisms have the capacity to produce more offspring than the environment can support.

Because he was well aware of the effect his theory of evolution would have on the public and on the Church of England, Darwin delayed publishing his work for several decades while he gathered additional evidence. After invoking selective breeding of domesticated species as evidence that groups of organisms are capable of change, he then proposed that natural populations can change as well. On which two lines of evidence did he base this proposal?

Organisms within a population vary, and all populations produce more offspring than can be supported by the environment, resulting in competition for survival within the population.

How did some strains of Staphylococcus aureus become resistant to antibiotic drugs?

Some members of the bacteria population must have had a genetic variation that made them resistant to antibiotics, and these bacteria had greater reproductive success than sensitive individuals.

In 1959, doctors began using the powerful antibiotic methicillin to treat infections of Staphylococcus aureus, but within two years, methicillin-resistant strains of S. aureus (MRSA) appeared. How did the resistant strains of S. aureus emerge?

Staphylococcus aureus bacteria that were able to synthesize cell walls using a protein that was not affected by methicillin survived the methicillin treatments and reproduced at higher rates than did other individuals. Over time, these resistant individuals became increasingly common.

Soapberry bugs use needlelike "beaks" to feed on seeds within the fruits of various plants. Bugs feed most successfully when their beak length matches the size of the fruit on which they are feeding. For 25 years, populations of soapberry bugs in central Florida have been feeding on small goldenrain tree fruits that were introduced to the area, rather than on the larger native balloon vine fruits that serve as food for other soapberry bug populations. Beak lengths of soapberry bugs are variable, but the average beak length is shorter in soapberry bug populations that feed on goldenrain tree fruits than in populations that feed on balloon vine fruits, as shown in the graph. How does natural selection act on beak length in soapberry bug populations?

The action of natural selection on beak length in soapberry bug populations varies with the environment.

A biologist studied a population of squirrels for 15 years. During that time, the population was never fewer than 30 squirrels and never more than 45. Her data showed that over half of the squirrels born did not survive to reproduce, because of both competition for food and predation. In a single generation, 90% of the squirrels that were born lived to reproduce, and the population increased to 80. Which inference(s) about this population might be true?

The amount of available food may have increased. or The number of predators that prey upon squirrels may have decreased.

Which of the following statements most detracts from the claim that the human appendix is a completely vestigial organ?

The appendix has a substantial amount of defensive lymphatic tissue.

In the United States today, about half of the corn crop is genetically engineered with a protein that is toxic to corn borers, an insect pest of corn. Which of the following conditions would be necessary for evolution of resistance to the toxic protein to occur in the corn borer?

The corn borer must have or generate (by mutation) heritable variation in resistance to the toxic protein. The resistant corn borers must survive better or reproduce more than nonresistant corn borers.

Which of the following statements describes the evolution by natural selection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria in their new environment?

The drug-resistance trait is an adaptation to the environment in which human hosts are medicated with the antibiotic rifampin.

A population of zooplankton is exposed to a small number of predatory fish that feed on the larger-sized (adult) zooplankton. Which of the following predictions would most likely occur based on the principles of natural selection?

The population will come to contain adult zooplankton that reach sexual maturity when they are still relatively small.

A group of small fish live in a lake with a uniformly light-brown sandy bottom. Most of the fish are light brown, but about 10% are mottled. This fish species is often prey for large birds that live on the shore. A construction company dumps a load of gravel in the bottom of the lake, giving it a mottled appearance. Which of these statements presents the most accurate prediction of what will happen to this fish population?

The proportion of mottled fish will increase over time.

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?

The two species share many proteins in common, and the nucleotide sequences that code for these proteins are almost identical.

If the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus experiences a cost for maintaining one or more antibiotic-resistance genes, then what should happen in environments from which antibiotics are missing?

These bacteria should be outcompeted and replaced by bacteria that have lost these genes.

If the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus experiences a cost for maintaining one or more antibiotic-resistance genes, what would happen in environments that lack antibiotics?

These bacteria would be outcompeted and replaced by bacteria that have lost these genes.

What did Darwin observe about species on islands?

They are often closely related to species from the nearest mainland or neighboring islands.

Which of the following statements best describes theories?

They are supported by, and make sense of, many observations.

True or False Natural selection favors individuals that reproduce more than others.

True

True or false? It would be difficult to assess whether the drug-susceptible or drug-resistant phenotype in a population of Mycobacterium tuberculosis was more fit in an environment without antibiotics.

True

Over evolutionary time, many cave-dwelling organisms have lost their eyes. Tapeworms have lost their digestive systems. Whales have lost their hind limbs. How can natural selection account for these losses?

Under particular circumstances that persisted for long periods, each of these structures presented greater costs than benefits.

Which of these lists contains the four postulates of natural selection?

Variation in population, heritable variation, selection, differential survival or reproduction

Which one of the following researchers developed a theory of evolution that was very similar to Charles Darwin's?

Wallace

Charles Darwin was the first person to propose

a mechanism for evolution that was supported by evidence.

An adaptation is _____.

a trait that gives an organism a reproductive advantage in the current environment

Which term describes a trait that increases an individual's ability to survive in a particular environment?

adaption

Ichthyosaurs were extinct aquatic reptiles distantly related to living lizards. Fossils show us that they had dorsal fins and tails, as do fish, even though their closest relatives were terrestrial reptiles that had neither dorsal fins nor aquatic tails. The dorsal fins and tails of ichthyosaurs and fish are

adaptions to a common environment, and convergent evolution

Varieties of Staphylococcus aureus that are resistant to the drug methicillin _____.

already existed in the population before methicillin was developed. were strongly selected for as methicillin became widely used to treat bacterial infections

and what term best describes the flippers of penguins and seals?

analogous

The breeding of plants and animals for particular traits by humans is called __________.

artificial selection

Of the following anatomical structures, which is homologous to the bones in the wing of a bird?

bones in the flipper of a whale

The role that humans play in artificial selection is to

choose which organisms breed, and which do not

You are an entomologist specializing in the vision of the anthomyiid flies. What is your area of expertise?

compound eyes

How do you count the number of species on a tree?

count each line

Examples of direct observation of evolutionary change

development of drug resistance in bacteria

Seemingly dissimilar organisms such as hummingbirds, humans, and whales have similar skeletal structures. This most directly suggested to biologists that __________.

dissimilar organisms might have evolved from a distant, common ancestor

Scientists studying hummingbird flight use the same technique as those studying fruit flies. What do they use?

dynamic scaling

A challenge to traditional (pre-1860) ideas about species came from embryology, when it was discovered that _____.

embryos of dissimilar organisms, such as sharks and humans, resemble each other

True or False Natural Selection is a process whereby genes are selected randomly for preservation in the next generation

false

True or False Natural selection can be used by farmers to generate organisms with desirable traits

false

True or False Natural selection occurs in opposition to evolution

false

The wing of the bat is homologous to the ___ of the whale

flipper

The evolution of populations due to chance is

genetic drift.

At the time Darwin voyaged on HMS Beagle, the popularly accepted theory in Western culture that explained the origin of Earth's plants and animals held that the various species __________.

had been created by divine intervention a few thousand years before

In a population with brown and green alleles for color, genetic drift

has more effect on the evolution of a small population.

Which term describes the ability of a trait to be passed on to offspring?

heritability

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?

homologous

On an evolutionary tree __________.

homologous characteristics form a nested pattern

Structures as different as human arms, bat wings, and dolphin flippers contain many of the same bones, which develop from similar embryonic tissues. These structural similarities are an example of _____.

homology

DNA sequences in many human genes are very similar to the sequences of corresponding genes in chimpanzees. The most likely explanation for this result is that

humans and chimpanzees share a relatively recent common ancestor.

The rise of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) can be considered to be an example of artificial selection because

humans synthesize methicillin and create environments in which bacteria frequently come into contact with methicillin.

The smallest unit that can evolve is a(n) __________.

population

Natural selection is based on all of the following except

individuals adapt to their environments and, thereby, evolve.

The theory of evolution through natural selection is considered a scientific theory because _____.

it is broad enough in scope to explain many observations. it is supported by a massive body of evidence from many disciplines. it is general enough to provide many testable hypotheses.

Which of the following is necessary for fruit flies to fly?

leading-edge vortex

Your friend is an entomologist studying the response to potential predators in the common cricket. To determine if the response is a reflex or a decision, which of the following body parts should he focus on?

legs

Fossils of Thrinaxodon, a species that lived during the Triassic period, have been found in both South Africa and Antarctica. Thrinaxodon had a reptile-like skeleton and laid eggs, but small depressions on the front of its skull suggest it had whiskers and, therefore, fur. Thrinaxodon may have been warm-blooded. The fossils of Thrinaxodon are consistent with the hypothesis that _____.

mammals evolved from a reptilian ancestor

In a hypothetical environment, fishes called pike-cichlids are visual predators of algae-eating fish (in other words, they locate their prey by sight). If a population of algae-eaters experiences predation pressure from pike-cichlids, which of the following is least likely to be observed in the algae-eater population over the course of many generations?

selection for larger female algae-eaters, bearing broods composed of more, and larger, young

At the time Charles Darwin sailed on HMS Beagle, __________.

several biologists had proposed that species might change over time, but none had suggested a convincing mechanism that might cause the change

Lyell's principle of uniformitarianism __________.

strongly influenced Darwin's view of how living organisms could change over time

Carolus Linnaeus is considered to be the founder of __________, and he __________.

the binomial classification system ... thought that resemblances among different species reflected the pattern of their creation

If color is an inherited trait in beetles, and birds are more likely to eat brown beetles than green beetles,

the frequency of the green allele will increase.

Examples of biogeography.

the high concentration of marsupial species in Australia. similarity of endemic island species to nearby mainland species.

If two modern organisms are distantly related in an evolutionary sense, then one should expect that

they should share fewer homologous structures than two more closely related organisms.

Researchers discovered that a new strain of bacteria that cause tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) taken from a dead patient has a point mutation in the rpoB gene that codes for part of the RNA polymerase enzyme. This mutant form of RNA polymerase does not function as well as the more common form of RNA polymerase. A commonly used antibiotic called rifampin does not affect the mutant rpoB bacteria. A researcher mixes M. tuberculosis with and without the rpoB mutation and adds the bacteria to cell cultures. Half the cell cultures contain only standard nutrients, while the other half of the cell cultures contain rifampin and the standard nutrients. After many cell generations, the researcher finds that _____.

very few M. tuberculosis in the standard nutrient cell cultures carry the rpoB gene mutation, but almost all of the M. tuberculosis in the cell cultures with rifampin carry the rpoB mutation

Examples of homology

vestigial pelvis in right whales. similarities in mammilian forelimbs. same genetic code in fireflies and tobacco plants.