Deck 18: Evolution and the Fossil Record

Question 1

Which of the following is NOT key evidence for a large meteorite impact striking the Earth approximately 65 million years ago?

A) tiny particles of glass called microtektites
B) "shocked quartz" grains, with fine parallel planes caused by a burst of intense pressure
C) the disappearance of many taxa of large reptiles beginning about 70 million years ago
D) a worldwide layer of sediments highly enriched in the element iridium
E) gravity anomalies that allow us to map the now-buried meteorite crater

Answer 1

C

Question 2

David Jablonski and colleagues found that species of bivalves with which of the following trait(s)persisted longer,and were less likely to die out,during times of background extinction?

A) epifaunal, suspension-feeding lifestyle
B) wider geographic ranges
C) planktonic larval stages
D) All of the above.
E) None of the above.

Answer 2

D

Question 3

An example of a plesiomorphy in the earliest fossil birds would include ________.

A) three clawed fingers on each hand
B) a long, bony tail
C) teeth
D) down-like feathers
E) All of the above.

Answer 3

E

Question 4

The accompanying figure shows the results of Jackson and Cheetham's studies on fossil and living cheilostome bryozoans.What can you infer from these diagrams?

A) Species of bryozoan have tended to persist with very little morphological change.
B) Bryozoans have unusually low genetic diversity.
C) Bryozoans predominantly evolve by phyletic transformation, or anagenesis.
D) Bryozoans have suffered heavily from extinction events on islands.
E) It is hard to define bryozoan species because of the presence of so many intermediate forms.

Question 5

Why is it inaccurate to refer to early synapsids as "mammal-like reptiles"?

A) Mammals did not evolve from synapsids.
B) Synapsids do not nest within the clade Reptilia as we define it now.
C) The taxon Synapsida is actually polyphyletic.
D) The earliest synapsids had no features that we associate with reptiles today.
E) Synapsids and reptiles lived on different continents in the late Paleozoic.

Question 6

The ________ [two words] is a well-known set of soft-bodied organisms living just before the Cambrian period,which probably includes at least simple animals and early bilaterians.

Question 7

Imagine that you find a fossil skeleton of a Late Devonian vertebrate.Which feature would enable you to conclude that it was fully a tetrapod?

A) a flattened skull with dorsally facing orbits
B) the loss of skeletal support for any gills
C) the loss of dorsal and anal fins
D) well-developed joints between vertebrae, and between vertebrae and the pelvis
E) lungs to enable breathing of atmospheric oxygen

Question 8

The relatively rapid appearance of animal phyla in the Cambrian period is correlated with a rise in ________ at the same time.

Question 9

The range of shapes found among members of a taxon may be thought of as a multidimensional space called a(n)________.

Question 10

Which of the following is NOT one of the "Big Five" mass extinctions?

A) End-Permian (251 Ma)
B) End-Triassic (200 Ma)
C) Late Devonian (about 360 Ma)
D) Eocene-Oligocene (33.9 Ma)
E) Terminal Ordovician (444 Ma)

Question 11

Rock layers right at the K-Pg boundary have enriched concentrations of the element iridium.This is significant for understanding the mass extinction that happened at the time,because ________.

A) iridium is toxic to life and could have killed off many species
B) iridium is very rare in the Earth's crust but relatively common in meteorites
C) iridium forms under conditions of extreme shock and heat
D) iridium would have caused an episode of severe acid rain
E) iridium-rich dust is particularly effective at blocking incoming solar radiation

Question 12

The past 542 million years is collectively known as the ________ eon.

A) Phanerozoic
B) Cenozoic
C) Archaean
D) Paleozoic
E) Cambrian

Question 13

Which well-known paleontologist created a global database of marine animal families to study changes in diversity through time?

A) Charles D. Walcott
B) Jere H. Lipps
C) David Raup
D) Michael Foote
E) Jack Sepkoski

Question 14

Which of these is a niche that Cambrian animals occupied―that,as far as we know,their predecessors did not?

A) grazing on microbial mats
B) feeding on organic debris
C) absorbing nutrients across membranes
D) predation while actively swimming
E) None of the above.

Question 15

Species of fossil organisms are morphospecies,which means they are defined on the basis of ________.

A) DNA sequence similarities
B) mate recognition behaviors
C) anatomical features
D) ability to interbreed
E) the locations where they are found

Question 16

The accompanying figure shows the results of comparative analyses of two clades: the horseshoe crabs,and the king crabs and hermit crabs.What can you conclude from these diagram?

A) Horseshoe crabs have been on the Earth for an unusually long time.
B) King crabs appeared in the fossil record before horseshoe crabs did.
C) Hermit crabs are much older than their fossil record reveals.
D) Horseshoe crabs are as genetically divergent as king and hermit crabs, despite being far less morphologically diverse.
E) Horseshoe crabs have not been subjected to significant stabilizing selection.

Question 17

The famous Cambrian-era fossil deposit known as the Burgess Shale is now estimated to contain fossils of how many animal phyla?

A) None―animals had not appeared at the time.
B) just two or three anatomically simple animal phyla
C) about the same number as those alive today
D) two or three times as many as alive today
E) about half as many as are alive today

Question 18

The expression "pull of the recent" refers to the fact that ________.

A) younger fossils are more important for the study of evolution than older fossils
B) older rocks are more likely to be volcanic rocks with no fossils
C) younger rocks are more likely to be covered up or otherwise inaccessible
D) the quality of the fossil record gets worse the farther back in time you look
E) younger fossils are more likely to be preserved by permineralization

Question 19

The study of the fossilization process itself is called ________.

A) sequence stratigraphy
B) permineralization
C) functional morphology
D) stratigraphic correlation
E) taphonomy

Question 20

Which of the following was NOT a likely consequence of the Chicxulub meteorite impact 65.5 million years ago?

A) eruption of massive volcanoes in India, forming deposits known as the Deccan Traps
B) intense acid rain from sulfuric acid forming in the atmosphere
C) global cooling caused by sulfur dioxide and airborne dust blocking solar radiation
D) a massive tsunami in the Gulf of Mexico
E) earthquakes of huge magnitude

Question 21

Hawaiian fruit flies descend from a single common ancestor that reached the islands and rapidly diversified into a wide range of ecological niches.This is a good example of ________.[two words]

Question 22

Stephen J.Gould and Niles Eldredge proposed that most morphological change happens at speciation events,and that most species show stasis (little or no morphological change)during most of their existence.This is the theory of ________.[two words]

Question 23

Another common term for morphological diversity―that is,for the range of different shapes and physical features found in a taxon―is ________.

Question 24

Comparing DNA sequences from living taxa and calibrating their rates of change with at least one well-dated fossil allows scientists to create time-calibrated trees with minimum and maximum age estimates for all branch points.Such studies are called ________ [two words] studies.

Question 25

An exceptionally rich fossil deposit is known as a(n)________.

Question 26

We may be living in the middle of the sixth great mass extinction,as human activity directly and indirectly drives species to extinction.How might the study of past mass extinctions show us how the current extinction might play out? Can paleontology give us any information that might help us mitigate the effects of the current extinction?

Question 27

Molecular analyses suggest that the major lineages of animals diverged hundreds of millions of years before their first known appearances in the fossil record.Some scientists propose that the reason for this discrepancy is that the earliest animals were small and larval-like,leaving no trace in the fossil record.Generate an alternative hypothesis that explains this discrepancy,and suggest how the two hypotheses could plausibly be tested.

Question 28

The term ________ is often used for large-scale evolutionary change in general,but also more precisely for processes operating above the species level.

Question 29

Trace fossils record the behavior of ancient organisms,but not necessarily their form; it is often difficult or impossible to link a given trace fossil with the precise species that made it.Nonetheless,trace fossils provide valuable data for reconstructing the history of life.Your textbook mentions that dinosaur trackways can be used to estimate living dinosaurs' speed.Generate another way in which trace fossils could contribute to paleontological studies even if the identities of their makers are unclear.

Question 30

David Raup and Jack Sepkoski showed that rates of background extinction have been slowly declining in the animal kingdom throughout the Phanerozoic era.Compare and contrast two possible explanations as to why these rates are declining.