Chapter 22
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.
Which term describes a trait that increases an individual's ability to survive in a particular environment?
Adaptation
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 natural selection in a population over time?
All variation between individuals is due only to environmental factors.
Which of the following statements about natural selection is true?
Natural selection favors individuals that reproduce more than others.
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? A.) The amount of available food may have increased. B.) The parental generation of squirrels developed better eyesight due to improved diet; the subsequent squirrel generation inherited better eyesight. C.) The number of predators that prey upon squirrels may have decreased. D.) A and C could be true. E.) A, B, and C could be true.
D.) A and C could be true.
The theory of evolution through natural selection is considered a scientific theory because _____. A.) it is broad enough in scope to explain many observations B.) it is supported by a massive body of evidence from many disciplines C.) it is general enough to provide many testable hypotheses D.) All of the above are correct. E.) None of the above is correct.
D.) All of the above are correct.
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: A.) examples of convergent evolution. B.) homologous. C.) adaptations to a common environment. D.) Three of the responses above are correct. E.) Two of the responses above are correct.
E.) Two of the responses above are correct.
Which of the following must exist in a population before natural selection can act upon that population? A.) genetic variation among individuals B.) variation among individuals in reproductive success C.) sexual reproduction D.) Three of the responses are correct. E.) Two of the responses are correct.
E.) Two of the responses are correct.
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? A.) by the principle of convergent evolution B.) by proposing that humans, bats, and dolphins share a common ancestor C.) by identifying the bones as being homologous structures D.) Three of the statements above are correct. E.) Two of the statements above are correct.
E.) Two of the statements above are correct.
Which term describes the ability of a trait to be passed on to offspring?
Heritability
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
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.
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.
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 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.
Which of the following statements best describes theories?
They are supported by, and make sense of, many observations.
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
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.
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
The wing of a bat is homologous to the _____ of a whale.
flipper
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, and what term best describes the flippers of penguins and seals?
homologous; analogous
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.
Natural selection is based on all of the following except
individuals adapt to their environments and, thereby, evolve.
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
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.