Deck 7: Darwinian Evolution

Question 1

Which two observations led Darwin to conclude that there is competition for survival?

A)Overproduction of organisms and limited food resources
B)Fossils and mutations
C)Gene and allele differences in organisms
D)Natural selection and descent with modification

Answer 1

A

Question 2

The oldest fossils are typically found in the sediments ________.

A)located closest to the surface
B)located deep under the surface
C)located close to water
D)located close to human dwellings

Answer 2

B

Question 3

What is the name for the study of the geographic distribution of species?

A)Biogeography
B)Ecology
C)Systematics
D)Taxonomy

Answer 3

A

Question 4

What contribution did Charles Lyell make?

A)He found some bird specimens on the Galapagos Islands.
B)He found some fossils of extinct species.
C)He suggested that life evolves through physical changes within the life span of an organism.
D)He provided the first evidence that the Earth is much older than was previously thought.

Question 5

Individuals with variations that make them best suited to their environment are, on average, more likely to ________.

A)evolve
B)change over time
C)survive and reproduce
D)become larger

Question 6

Evolution can be best defined as ________.

A)the production of new species
B)change in the composition of populations
C)change in the gene pool of a population
D)always taking a very long time to occur

Question 7

Before the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, what was the prevailing public consensus regarding species evolution?

A)That species were permanent and unchanging
B)That species evolved through physical changes that led to success
C)That species evolved by means of natural selection
D)That species were modified over time but did not change into new species

Question 8

The approach that consists in comparing DNA sequences to find evidence of a shared evolutionary history is called ________.

A)genomics
B)proteomics
C)comparative anatomy
D)bioinformatics

Question 9

Natural selection acts on ________, and ________ evolve.

A)individuals; individuals
B)individuals; populations
C)populations; populations
D)populations; individuals

Question 10

What is radiometric dating?

A)The process of determining the age of a fossil from radioactive isotopes
B)The mineralization process by which living things are turned into fossils
C)The process of determining the age of a fossil based on its location in layers of rocks
D)The process of determining the age of a fossil using radio waves

Question 11

Which of the following is evidence for evolution in action?

A)Bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics over time
B)Mosquitoes becoming resistant to pesticides
C)The different domesticated breeds of dogs customized for our needs
D)All are evidence for evolution

Question 12

Which of the following was a scientist around the time of Charles Darwin?

A)Lamark was a French naturalist that first explored the idea of evolution.
B)Lyell was a geologist that was examining the age of Earth.
C)Wallace was an evolutionary biologist developing hypotheses about evolution.
D)All of the above were scientists around the time of Charles Darwin.

Question 13

Apples that we find in the grocery store today are much larger and sweeter than those found in the wild hundreds of years ago.Which process is responsible for this change?

A)Resistance to pesticides
B)Artificial selection
C)Survival of the fittest
D)Genetic drift

Question 14

Which of the following are considered fossils?

A)Footprints or other impressions preserved in stone
B)Mineralized bones
C)Animals frozen in ice or preserved in amber
D)All of the above are considered fossils

Question 15

Can you inherit physical traits that your parents acquired during their lifetime?

A)No
B)Yes
C)Only if it improves survivability
D)Only if it improves reproductive success

Question 16

Comparing the body structures of organisms to find evidence of a shared evolutionary history is called ________.

A)outgrouping
B)physiology
C)comparative anatomy
D)analogous reconstruction

Question 17

What is an adaptation?

A)The result of natural selection
B)A specialized feature
C)The accumulation of favorable traits over time
D)All of the above are correct

Question 18

A weed that exhibits resistance to an herbicide ________.

A)developed the resistance in response to the herbicide
B)mutated when exposed to the herbicide
C)inherited the gene that made it resistant to the herbicide
D)is less likely to pass on the gene to the next generation

Question 19

What prompted Darwin to publish his book decades after he began writing it?

A)He had completed the last of his experiments.
B)He had returned from his voyage around the world.
C)Wallace, a colleague, was about to publish a similar manuscript.
D)After years of searching, he finally found a publisher willing to accept it.

Question 20

Before Darwin published his work, Lamarck and others had suggested mechanisms for evolution.By what means did Darwin propose species evolved over time?

A)Overproduction of young
B)Passing on acquired traits
C)Survival of the strongest
D)Natural selection

Question 21

How old is our planet Earth?

A)6,000 years old
B)4.6 million years old
C)4.6 billion years old
D)We do not have enough information to accurately date the age of Earth.

Question 22

Which of the following are examples of macroevolution?

A)The creation of new species
B)Mass extinctions that wipe 50% or more of living species
C)The evolution of novel biological features
D)All of the above are examples of macroevolution

Question 23

The slow drifting of sections of the earth's crust, sometimes separating, other times colliding, is known as ________.

A)continental convergence
B)continental divergence
C)crust dynamics
D)plate tectonics

Question 24

Despite an abundance of habitat, why will it be difficult for the human species to recover?

A)Related humans are not able to reproduce.
B)The founder effect will slowly kill off the survivors in a small population.
C)Modern humans lack the ingenuity needed to survive without an extended social network.
D)The reduced genetic diversity will make it difficult for the population to adapt to new diseases or other environmental changes.

Question 25

Which of the following processes is most likely to occur on this small population of humans?

A)Genetic drift
B)Gene flow
C)Mutations
D)Sexual selection

Question 26

Today, we are in the ________ geologic era.

A)Precambrian
B)Paleozoic
C)Mesozoic
D)Cenozoic

Question 27

Which of the following best defines microevolution?

A)Changes in genes between populations
B)Changes in genes within a population over time
C)Changes in genes that do not change the gene pool over time
D)Changes across species but not in genes

Question 28

What events can lead to offspring having a unique arrangement of their parents' genes?

A)Crossing over
B)Independent assortment
C)Both crossing over and independent assortment
D)Neither crossing over nor independent assortment

Question 29

Which of the following are lines of evidence that support the theory of evolution by natural selection?

A)The study of the geographic distribution of species on Earth
B)The comparison of DNA sequences in different organisms
C)The comparison of body structures in modern organisms
D)All of the above are lines of evidence that support the theory of evolution

Question 30

When did life first appear on the planet?

A)3.5 billion years ago
B)2.1 billion years ago
C)3.5 million years ago
D)2.1 million years ago

Question 31

What is the smallest unit that can evolve?

A)The ecosystem
B)The population
C)The individual
D)The cell

Question 32

The modern evolutionary synthesis of the 1930s and 1940s melded together Darwin's findings with ________.

A)genetics
B)sociology
C)psychology
D)chemistry

Question 33

What defines a population in evolution?

A)Members of the same community
B)Members of a single species that may, or may not, share a common space
C)Interbreeding members of the same species that share a common space
D)Multiple species interacting together in an ecosystem

Question 34

Human embryos have a developmental stage during which they have a tail and pharyngeal pouches (those pouches develop into gills in fish).How can we explain these characteristics of human embryos?

A)Human embryos need a tail and gills to breathe during development in the placenta.
B)Human embryos spend time in the water where tails and gills are useful.
C)Human embryos share a common ancestor who had gills.
D)Both A and B are correct.

Question 35

What is an exception to the standard biological species concept used to define a species?

A)Species that coevolved cannot be distinguished using this concept.
B)Natural interbreeding populations cannot be distinguished using this concept.
C)Asexual species cannot be distinguished using this concept.
D)Species that do not resemble one another cannot be distinguished using this concept.

Question 36

What does fitness mean when speaking in terms of evolution?

A)Level of overall health of the individual
B)How many offspring an individual produces
C)Physical strength of a given individual in a population
D)The size and diversity of the gene pool

Question 37

Which process of evolution does not change the total number of species?

A)Branching evolution
B)Nonbranching evolution
C)Extinction
D)All change the number of species

Question 38

Certain traits will have been lost from the gene pool forever.This loss of diversity in a reduced population is called ________.

A)gene flow
B)genetic drift
C)bottleneck effect
D)founder effect

Question 39

If two organisms of different species share more similar DNA sequences with each other than with other species, we can conclude that ________.

A)these two species are not closely related
B)these two species are very closely related
C)these two species happen to share similar DNA by chance
D)there is no relationship between similar DNA and how closely related organisms are

Question 40

What is the leading hypothesis for what might have brought about the extinction of the dinosaurs?

A)A new disease
B)Competition from mammals
C)An asteroid impact
D)Massive volcano eruptions

Question 41

What is the fundamental difference between the processes of microevolution and macroevolution?

Question 42

The rapid diversification of species seen in the fossil record followed by long periods of stasis is part of the ________ model of evolution.

A)punctuated equilibrium
B)symmetric
C)spatial
D)graduated

Question 43

All prokaryotes are in the domain ________.

A)Bacteria
B)Prokarya
C)Archaea
D)Prokaryotes are in different domains.

Question 44

Class Reptilia includes all reptiles, and Class Aves includes all birds.However, a cladistics approach would place birds in the same class with reptiles.Why would a cladistician classify birds and reptiles in a single class despite the behavioral and physical differences between the two?

Question 45

Which of the following most often leads to allopatric speciation?

A)Habitat isolation
B)Behavioral isolation
C)Gametic incompatibility
D)Mating time differences

Question 46

What field of science has as its goal to classify all living things into a hierarchical system of relatedness that runs from most broad to most narrow?

A)Evolution
B)Phylogenetics
C)Taxonomy
D)Cladistics

Question 47

Which grouping includes all of the protists?

A)Domain Archaea
B)Domain Eukarya
C)Kingdom Animalia
D)Kingdom Plantae

Question 48

A requirement of cladistics is that a grouping must include ________.

A)species that can interbreed
B)only living species
C)species with shared traits
D)a common ancestor and all its descendants

Question 49

Use the phylogenetic tree below to answer the following question(s).
According to this phylogenetic tree, which bear is most closely related to the American black bear?

A)The sun bear
B)The Asiatic black bear
C)The polar bear
D)The brown bear

Question 50

In many ways, a mule is a superior animal to the horse or donkey.Mules are often stronger and can jump higher than either of their parents.Why, then, are mules considered to be a "weak hybrid"?

A)They are sterile.
B)They do not live as long as horses and donkeys.
C)Their offspring are progressively weaker than the parents.
D)They are more prone to disease than are horses and donkeys.

Question 51

Which classification grouping includes the greatest number of species?

A)Domain
B)Order
C)Phylum
D)Kingdom

Question 52

Explain how a complex trait, such as eyes or the ability to fly, can evolve by incremental modifications over time.

Question 53

Use the phylogenetic tree below to answer the following question(s).
Which of the following statement is correct regarding the phylogenetic tree above?

A)The sun bear's closest relative is the sloth bear.
B)The American black bear has no closely related species.
C)The polar bear and the brown bear are the most recently evolved species.
D)Most bears on the phylogenetic tree are extinct.

Question 54

Which model of evolution is closest to what was originally suggested by Charles Darwin?

A)The punctuated equilibrium model matches best the reasoning of Charles Darwin.
B)The graduated model matches best the reasoning of Charles Darwin.
C)Neither the punctuated equilibrium model nor the graduated model match the original reasoning of Charles Darwin.
D)Both the punctuated equilibrium model and the graduated model match the original reasoning of Charles Darwin.

Question 55

What term describes the failure of one species' sperm to fertilize the egg of a different species?

A)Hybrid weakness
B)Gametic incompatibility
C)Mechanical incompatibility
D)Behavioral isolation

Question 56

How can the use of chemical control agents (antibiotics, herbicides, pesticides) lead to their decreased effectiveness?

Question 57

Some of the "branches" of a phylogenetic tree do not extend to the end.What do these lines represent?

A)Extinct species
B)Species of unknown origin
C)Convergent species
D)Lineages that have not changed

Question 58

Of those listed below, which category of classification is the most narrow?

A)Class
B)Domain
C)Family
D)Genus

Question 59

The eastern meadowlark and the western meadowlark are two bird species that look very similar to each other.Why do biologists not consider them the same species?

A)Species are not determined by appearance but by their ability to interbreed naturally.
B)The two species do not live in the same habitat and thus do not interbreed in nature.
C)The two species experience the reproductive barrier of habitat isolation.
D)All of the above are correct.

Question 60

If a changing environment increases rates of evolution, why do we see an increase in extinction rates following rapid global catastrophes?

Question 61

Based on the following phylogenetic tree, is the sun bear more closely related to the sloth bear or to the brown bear? Explain your reasoning.