Exam 15: Tracing Evolutionary History

How can the success of one group of organisms promote the adaptive radiation of a second group?

________ and ________ mean the same thing.

How is the merging of continents to form Pangaea believed to have altered Earth's environments at the end of the Paleozoic era?

Anti-evolutionary thinkers sometimes argue that natural selection could not produce a complex structure like the vertebrate eye. They claim that all of the parts of the eye must have arisen at once, asking why natural selection would favor the development of part of an eye that is not yet capable of forming a focused image. Which of the statements about the molluscan eye rejects the claim of anti-evolutionary thinkers?

Over the past 400 years, humans have documented the extinction of more than ________ species. This modern rate of species extinction is estimated to be ________ the normal extinction rate seen in the fossil record.

Which highly reactive gas was probably absent from the Earth's primitive atmosphere?

Mass extinctions

The technique called radiometric dating is based on

The three-domain system

Biologists are studying two species whose DNA is known to differ by 10%. Which information would be least important in calibrating a molecular clock to determine how rapidly evolution has proceeded with these two species?

The family Felidae (cats) is distributed across Africa, Eurasia, North America, and South America and is hypothesized to have eight major lineages (Panthera, bay cat, caracal, ocelot, lynx, puma, leopard, and domestic cat groups) as shown in this phylogenetic tree, constructed from DNA sequences. Scientists used a molecular clock and fossil evidence to date the divergence of each group. The dates of divergence are provided in the accompanying figure. -According to the phylogenetic tree, what is the best explanation for why members of the Felidae are found on nearly all the major continents?

In mammals, the presence of four limbs is ________, and hair is ________.

The 14C:12C ratio can be used to date fossils that are up to approximately how old?

The family Felidae (cats) is distributed across Africa, Eurasia, North America, and South America and is hypothesized to have eight major lineages (Panthera, bay cat, caracal, ocelot, lynx, puma, leopard, and domestic cat groups) as shown in this phylogenetic tree, constructed from DNA sequences. Scientists used a molecular clock and fossil evidence to date the divergence of each group. The dates of divergence are provided in the accompanying figure. -The cheetah, which is currently found in Africa, is part of the puma group. Which of the following predictions is most consistent with the evolutionary hypotheses represented in the phylogenetic tree?

A systematist includes a lizard in a phylogenetic analysis of relationships among bird families. In this analysis, the lizard would be treated as

It is estimated that the modern continents began to take shape

One of the strongest lines of evidence of a meteor or comet impact in the late Cretaceous is

________ makes it possible to trace phylogenies among microbial groups for which there is no fossil record.

The family Felidae (cats) is distributed across Africa, Eurasia, North America, and South America and is hypothesized to have eight major lineages (Panthera, bay cat, caracal, ocelot, lynx, puma, leopard, and domestic cat groups) as shown in this phylogenetic tree, constructed from DNA sequences. Scientists used a molecular clock and fossil evidence to date the divergence of each group. The dates of divergence are provided in the accompanying figure. -Scientists have observed that for several species of smaller Felidae (such as ocelots and wild members of the domestic cat group), individuals that are kept in zoos become tame, that is, friendly to humans. This behavior is a ________ that may have made domestication of the house cat's ancestor more likely.

The model of species selection is analogous to natural selection. In this analogy, ________ are like individuals within a population, and ________ is analogous to reproduction.