Evolution Mega Quizzes Final Prep

Rate of living theory

- Organisms are selected to minimize cellular damage and maximize repair - A faster metabolism should result in faster aging - Organisms shouldn't be able to evolve longer life spans

Three requirements for green beard allele to exist in population?

- a greenbeard allele must produce a particular phenotype - a greenbeard allele will allow the carrier of the allele to recognize the phenotype that it is responsible for producing within other organisms - a greenbeard allele will compel the carrier of the allele to behave altruistically towards other conspecifics that have the same phenotype

"A source of new genes is ________________ and one of the underlying mechanisms for this is _______________."

- gene duplication/unequal crossing over AND -polyploidy/ duplication of the genome

It can be argued that sexual reproduction has a 50% cost because of the following two reasons (select the two correct responses).

- half of an individual's genetic complement is forfeited in the production of each offspring. - asexually reproducing populations always produce twice as many offspring.

Which step does NOT have to occur in order for speciation to take place?

- reproductive isolation - trait divergence - population isolation

Which is inaccurate

- theory of special creation claims that species do not change over time and are created separately and independently. - Processed pseudogenes can be used to estimate evolutionary ages of phylogenetic relationships. [The fossil, Archaeopteryx, provides support for the law of succession given that is possess a skeleton similar to reptiles but feathers similar to modern birds.] - The coccyx is an example of a vestigial structure in humans.

Select all of the following that accurately complete the sentence, "When a beneficial recessive allele is rare..."

- very few individuals in the population have the recessive phenotype - selection doesn't "see it" given that selection acts on the phenotype of individuals - most copies of the allele are hidden in heterozygotes.

A hypothetical population has two alleles for a gene: A and a. In a random sample of 100 individuals, 20 are homozygous for a, 20 are homozygous for A, and 60 are heterozygous. What is the frequency of A?

.50

Which of the following best describes the law of succession?

A pattern by which fossils of extinct animals resemble current animals living within the same geographic location.

If a population is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, which of the following statements is correct?

Allele frequencies must remain the same from generation to generation.

What is the difference between direct benefits and indirect benefits?

Direct benefits result in a direct fitness increase to the female recipient, while indirect benefits result in a fitness increase on the female's offspring.

All of the following are ways in which a species can become isolated in sympatry, EXCEPT:

Dispersal of some individuals to a new geographic area

Which of the following correctly describes a hypothesis as to how tetrapods became adapted to dry land?

Early tetrapods containing characteristics that allowed them to enter and stay on dry land (where there were untapped food resources) were positively selected for and passed on to the next generation.

Duplicated genes can result in neofunctionalism if the gene was duplicated via unequal crossing over, but not when the gene is duplicated via retroposition.

FALSE

Heterozygosity is higher within a population when allele frequencies are more different (i.e. heterozygosity is higher when p=.9 and q=.1 compared to when p=.6 and q=.4).

FALSE

If selection favors the combination of two alleles from different loci, selection can maintain linkage equilibrium at those two sites.

FALSE

Individuals in populations with higher ecological mortality will not benefit by investing in earlier reproduction.

FALSE

Mutation is considered 'random' because while the specific allele copy that mutates is fixed and predetermined, different genes will mutate at different rates.

FALSE

Relative dating allows geologists assign specific dates to each rock layer.

FALSE

Research strongly suggests that Hox genes have evolved independently across many major animal phyla and are not homologous.

FALSE

Sexual selection, not natural selection, explains the occurrence of sexually dimorphic traits within a species.

FALSE

There are different hypotheses that explain why females have preferences for certain traits in males. In all explanations, female preferences evolve because having the preference is adaptive for the female.

FALSE

To explain the evolution of mutually beneficial social behaviors you must consider the actors indirect fitness/inclusive fitness.

FALSE

Evolution (defined as a change is gene frequencies in a population over time) is considered a scientific theory because it has yet to be tested and supported enough to be considered a scientific fact.

False

Which statement best explains an aspect of the handicap principle?

Females favor traits that may be naturally selected against because it shows that the male is of 'high quality' and is capable of supporting the handicap.

Which best explains the hypothesis as to how the mammal inner ear evolved to contain three small bones compared to the one single bone that is observed in early cynodonts?

Fossils show that the two bones that form the jaw hinge in nonmammalian cynodonts, were reduced in size and incorporated into the inner ear.

Reinforcement

If two recently diverged species create infertile hybrids when they mate, which hybridization model would be present in this species pair?

Which below accurately describes a conclusions drawn from the empirical paper that we discussed in class (Lind & Johansson 2007)?

Increased phenotypic plasticity is observed in populations with increased environmental heterogeneity.

Morphospecies concept - strength

Inexpensive can be easily applied

Which best describes the relationship between telomere length and cancer risk?

Longer telomeres increase life span by protecting cells from oxidative stress, however, longer telomeres and higher telomerase activity increase cancer risk

developmental plasticity

Male dung beetles have alternative reproductive tactics (i.e. guarding males and sneaker males). Their specific tactic depends on their nutrition early in life, which influences their morphology. As such, male mating strategies in these species, are said to display _______________.

Which of the following statements about migration is correct?

Migration is a stronger mechanism of evolution when two populations have starting allele frequencies that are more dissimilar

Which of these DOES NOT represent new genetic variation upon which selection could act?

Mutation from one base to another in the DNA sequence of a non functional pseudogene that changes the amino acid from a Serine to an Arginine.

Which of the following statements regarding the evolutionary impact of mutations is inaccurate?

Mutations occurring in germline cells will have no evolutionary impact because they are not passed on to the next generation.

TRUE of natural selection.

Natural selection can't select for traits that will be beneficial to future environmental conditions

Which statement about non-random mating is correct?

Non-random mating can occur for some traits and genes, but not others, in the same population

Which of the following statements is false regarding challenges in evolutionary tree construction and the strategies used to overcome them?

Parsimony offers a point of comparison for the ingroup as well as allows the tree to be rooted.

How would using phylogenetic systematics be different from the traditional Linnaean classification system?

Phylogenetic systematics would not rank organisms into artificial groups.

Ring species

Ring species occur when populations at either end of a cline diverge to the point that they can no longer interbreed, even though genes can travel between them through the intermediate populations.

Which of the following conditions does not accurately represent Muller's ratchet, in terms of the selective advantage of sexual reproduction?

Sexual reproduction keeps deleterious mutations from occurring and results in more beneficial mutations.

Which of the following explanations describes how spiteful behavior can be adaptive?

Spiteful behavior can be advantageous when it is directed at individuals that are less related to the actor than they are to the average population.

Data from morphological traits and from molecular traits will not always agree about the most likely phylogenetic reconstruction.

TRUE

If unchecked by other processes, genetic drift will result in a genetically uniform population.

TRUE

In Fischers Theory of female arbiturary choice - A genetic correlation should exist between the female preference and the male trait.

TRUE

Offspring quality (i.e. offspring fecundity) is (in most cases) positively correlated with offspring size.

TRUE

Radiometric dating and relative dating have allowed geologists to conclude that the earth is ~4.6 billion years old.

TRUE

The discovery of unicellular fossils, dated around 3.2 byo, suggests that life on earth is older than 3 billion years.

TRUE

The theory of uniformitarianism allowed early geologists to determine that the earth was very old because it assumes that changes in the earth's crust during geological history have resulted from the action of continuous and uniform processes.

TRUE

the frequency of a new mutant allele equals one divided by the total number of alleles (at that locus) in the population.

TRUE

Which explanation describes the observation that females are typically the "choosy" sex?

The first three responses are all correct

Which of the following statements about life history characters is true?

The quality of resources within an organism's environment can influence it's optimal reproductive strategy.

In the paper we discussed in class on Tasmanian Devils, researchers used the concept of linkage disequilibrium to help answer their main question. Which of the following statements best reflects their logic?

The stronger the selection on an allele, the larger the area of LD surrounding that allele. Therefore, researchers looked for areas in the genome with strong signatures of LD to locate genes that were under positive selection.

Which of the following statements regarding intrasexual selection is false?

This form of sexual selection tends to lead to "display" or "advertisement" traits, such as showy or colorful body parts, or exaggerated mating displays.

Which of the following statements about eusociality is FALSE?

Under the haplodiploidy hypothesis, it is proposed that daughters benefit from helping raise siblings because they are equally related to their siblings as they would be to their own offspring.

Which of the following is not a prediction of the Red Queen hypothesis for the evolution of sex?

When males provide parental care, this offsets the twofold cost of sex

In which of the following situations is reciprocity most likely to evolve?

When there are ample opportunities for individuals to offer a specific favor to others, and there are times when individuals need to receive that favor

An attribute that increases an organism's fitness, as compared to individuals lacking it, is called a(n) ________.

adaptation

Phylogenetic species concept - weaknes

arbitrary cut-offs

Narrow-sense heritability and broad sense heritability differ in that...

broad sense heritability measures the portion of the total variation in a trait that is due to variation in genes while narrow sense measures the portion of the total variation that is due to additive genetic variation.

Which of the following does not accurately complete the sentence, "The breeder's equation..."

can be used to measure the region in the genome where selection is taking place.

Phylogenetic species concept - strength

can help identify cryptic species

Biological species concept - strength

directly relevant to evolutionary independence

Biological species concept - weakness

does not apply to asexual lineages

Morphospecies concept - weakness

does not recognize cryptic species

A disadvantage of genetic recombination is that...

genetic recombination can break up advantageous haplotypes

According to the basic model of mutation/selection balance...

if selection is strong and the mutation rate is low , the equilibrium frequency of a deleterious allele will be relatively low in the population.

In a population of 60, you are given the following genotype counts: AA = 22, Aa = 8 and aa = 30. You conclude that the population ...

is not in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and infer that the population is evolving that this particular locus.

When males and females have different optimal fitness strategies for reproduction...

it can lead to a repeated pattern of adaption and counter-adaptation (i.e. antagonistic coevolution) between the two sexes.

To learn the location of and determine the role that QTLs have on phenotypes, researchers...

look for associations between a marker locus genotype and phenotype.

Over the long term, negative frequency dependent selection, will __________

maintain genetic diversity in the population given that selection favors the rare phenotype

Human MN blood groups occur at Hardy-Weinberg equilibria. Therefore, human populations must be ...

mating randomly with respect to this trait

___________________, involves evolutionary change at the level of the population, and results in a change in gene frequencies overtime.

microevolution

Which of the following best explains the prevalence of spinal muscular atrophy in the human population?

mutation supplies new copies of the disease causing allele at a high enough rate relative to selection against the allele.

The molecular clock relies upon the assumption that...

mutations in DNA accumulate at a constant rate

Which accurately describes a component of the mutation accumulation hypothesis?

mutations that cause late-life senescence can accumulate in populations via mutation-selection balance

When selection favors homozygotes over heterozygotes it is likely that____________.

one of the alleles will become fixed within the population.

Which mechanism(s) can lead to a change in gene frequencies, but not allele frequencies from generation to generation? Select all that apply.

overdominance

Parallel evolution differs from convergent evolution in that...

parallel evolution results in homoplasies that evolve from the same developmental pathways, while convergent evolution results in homoplasies from different pathways.

Lack's hypothesis regarding optimal reproductive effort and clutch size...

proposes that natural selection will favor the clutch size that maximizes the number of surviving offspring within any particular reproductive bout.

The discovery of developmental constraints...

reveals that the ability of evolution to change various structures is limited by the developmental underpinnings of those structures.

Select the response that most accurately completes the following sentence: "Sexual selection is particularly efficient at producing reproductive isolation, compared to natural selection because..."

sexual selection acts directly on traits involved in reproduction whereas natural selection acts only indirectly on reproductive interactions.

The main difference between sexual selection and natural selection is that...

sexual selection is associated with traits involved with acquiring mates, while natural selection is associated with traits involved in survival and fecundity.

A key point in a Darwinian explanation of evolution is that

slight variations among individuals may significantly affect the chance that a given individual will successfully reproduce.

Which of the following does not accurately complete the following sentence? "The proposed explanation of punctuated equilibrium..."

suggests that morphological change gradually accumulates within lineages over time at a generally constant pace.

When the rate of recombination is high...

the faster linkage disequilibrium will decay.

When selection favors a recessive allele that is initially at low frequency in a population....

the frequency of the allele will first increase slowly, and then rapidly.

Under Hamilton's rule, an altruistic behavior can evolve if...

the number of surviving offspring of the recipient multiplied by the relatedness coefficient is greater than the number of surviving offspring of the actor.

When genes at separate loci are transmitted into gametes in associations that differ from the expectations of random combinations of those genes, it is likely because...

the two genes are genetically linked

Any two individuals can be considered negatively related if..

the two individuals are less related than the mean r value across the entire population

examining phylogeny: homoplasy

trait on two separate taxa branches

examining phylogeny: synapomorphy

trait starting before a branch of two taxa

Considering the nature of sampling variation, in natural populations, the allele frequency in one generation is not expected to exactly equal the frequency in the next generation because...

when taking a finite sample from a larger source (i.e. gametes from a gene pool), probabilistically, the sample is unlikely to reflect the larger source exactly.

Females likely have a preexisting bias for a male trait...

when the preference for the trait evolved before the evolution of the trait.

The magnitude of change in allele frequencies that is expected by genetic drift...

will be larger when the starting allele frequencies are equal (i.e. p = .5 and q = .5)

Which of the following does NOT accurately complete the sentence. "Kin selection...

will only occur when the indirect fitness of the recipient is greater than the indirect fitness of the actor"

Which statement DOES NOT accurately complete the following sentence: "If selection favors a new allele within a population, over time that allele should increase in frequency, however, genetic drift.."

will strengthen selection on the allele and cause the allele to go to fixation faster.