Exam 12: Mechanisms of Evolution

Compared to a large mainland population,genetic drift in a small island population is________ important because________.

When individuals with intermediate values of an inherited phenotypic trait,like head circumference at birth,have an advantage over other individuals in the population,________ is the apparent pattern of natural selection.

Provide an example of analogous traits in two organisms and explain how/why those traits evolved in such distantly related organisms.

During gene flow,

A population of 8,250 mice occupies the sand dunes in a coastal area.A severe hurricane washes out several miles of sand dunes.As a result,only 50 mice remain.The population has experienced

A used car is shipped from Australia to the United States.Stowed away in the trunk of the car is a piece of wood infected with Australian termites.Once in the United States,the buyer of the car finds the rotting wood and dumps it on the side of the road.The termites survive and establish a colony on the side of the road but do not mate with local termite populations.This is an example of

Two populations of mice exist: one lives in an area with light rocks and the other lives in an area of dark rocks.A dark mouse from the population living on dark rocks migrates to the area of light rocks and breeds with mice there.Will this alter the allele frequency in the population? Discuss changes that may or may not be seen in the next generation and in following generations.

Evaluate the accuracy of the following statement: "Individuals evolve by becoming more adapted to their environment." Explain how you reached your conclusion.

Evaluate the accuracy of the following statement: "The natural selection of a prey species can be altered if a new predator is introduced." Explain how you reached your conclusion.

How do natural selection and sexual selection differ?

In the figure below,the migrating bird is successful at introducing the recessive allele a into population 2 and producing offspring with the Aa genotype.Over time,these offspring mate with each other to produce offspring.Birds of various genotypes from both populations fly back and forth between the populations sharing alleles.Predict the outcome of genotype or allele frequency changes in these two populations after many generations.

While on a camping trip,Brian collects a white tadpole from a pond and takes it home.The tadpole develops into a white bullfrog.When the frog gets too big,he releases it into a local pond.The next year,several white bullfrogs are observed in the pond.This is an example of

Match each example to one of the processes below. -An area consists of dark and light rocks.Mouse populations that live on the dark rocks tend to be darkly colored; mouse populations that live on the light rocks tend to be lightly colored.

An example of evolution that has been readily observed is

Disruptive selection operates whenever

Around 12,000 years ago,a massive extinction event decimated about 75 percent of the world's large mammal populations.A small number of cheetahs survived this event and began to reproduce.Discuss the implications of this event on the genetic diversity of today's cheetah population.

Match each example to one of the processes below. -Algae attach to a boat motor and are transported to a new lake where they establish a new colony.

Bees and hummingbirds are very good accidental pollinators.When they visit flowers to extract nectar,they pick up pollen from a flower and carry it to the next flower that they visit; this helps to distribute the pollen and the genes carried in the pollen to a different plant.Explain how bright red wildflowers that easily attract bees and hummingbirds might become more prevalent in a wildflower population of both red and white flowers through natural selection.

In the following figure,the flying bird moves permanently into the population shown on land.As a result,the allele frequency of A in the population changes from

The result of convergent evolution is ________ traits.