Question 1

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

Accepted Answer

A)  by providing new food resources, habitats, etc. for the second group to utilize 
B)  by competing with the second group, promoting the second group's adaptive radiation 
C)  by preying on the second group, which hastens the second group's adaptation 
D)  by filling most of the available niches, which speeds up the second group's diversification

Question 2

________ and ________ mean the same thing.

Accepted Answer

A)  Clade; parsimony 
B)  Parsimony; analogy 
C)  Clade; monophyletic taxon 
D)  Derived; ancestral

Question 3

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

Accepted Answer

A)  It eliminated all multicellular eukaryotes, allowing evolution to start anew. 
B)  Shallow coastal areas were drained, leading to the extinction of many marine species. 
C)  Climates warmed and moistened in the center of the new landmass. 
D)  It prompted an immediate increase in Earth's biodiversity.

Question 4

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?

Accepted Answer

A)  The anti-evolution argument has a great deal of merit. Only full-blown image-forming eyes are present in modern organisms, including in molluscs. 
B)  There are many intermediate stages of eye complexity, such as those in molluscs, that fulfill different adaptive functions. 
C)  The vertebrate eye is the ancestral form, and other types of organism, such as molluscs, have degenerate eyes that have lost most of their original structure and function. 
D)  The vertebrate eye works in a way that is completely different from the eyes found in molluscs and other invertebrates.

Question 5

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.

Accepted Answer

A)  100; about the same as 
B)  400; about double 
C)  1,000; over 100 times greater than 
D)  10,000; at least 1 million times greater than

Question 6

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

Accepted Answer

A)  methane 
B)  carbon dioxide 
C)  oxygen 
D)  water vapor

Question 7

Mass extinctions

Accepted Answer

A)  remove many species, but they are usually replaced within a million years or less by an even greater diversity of life. 
B)  mainly serve to "weed out" poorly adapted organisms and make room for new, better adapted species. 
C)  remove well-adapted species and groups from the Earth, so that it may take millions of years for species diversity to recover. 
D)  are caused by human activity and did not occur prior to the expansion of the Earth's human population.

Question 8

The technique called radiometric dating is based on

Accepted Answer

A)  the steady, clocklike decay of certain radioactive isotopes over time. 
B)  the assumption that radioactive isotopes accumulate in fossils at a constant rate. 
C)  the formation of radioactive molecules in rocks after they are deposited. 
D)  the use of fossils of known age to determine how fast carbon-14 decays.

Question 9

The three-domain system

Accepted Answer

A)  no longer recognizes eukaryotes as a monophyletic group. 
B)  subdivides the eukaryotes into two different domains. 
C)  subdivides the prokaryotes into two different domains. 
D)  separates plants, animals, and fungi into domains.

Question 10

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?

Accepted Answer

A)  the fossil record of these two species 
B)  a geological event that separated the species at a particular time 
C)  the function of each of these regions of DNA 
D)  the time of divergence of closely related species

Question 11

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?

Accepted Answer

A)  The common ancestor of the Felidae evolved on Pangaea. 
B)  Divergence and migration occurred multiple times, in multiple locations. 
C)  Species selection for fast predators was common on most continents. 
D)  The Felidae diversified in the Mesozoic, when the Earth's continents were still close together.

Question 12

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

Accepted Answer

A)  a shared derived character; a shared ancestral character that places mammals in the tetrapod clade 
B)  a shared ancestral character; a shared derived character unique to mammals 
C)  a homologous feature; an analogous feature 
D)  monophyletic; parsimonious

Question 13

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

Accepted Answer

A)  100 million years 
B)  7 million years 
C)  75,000 years 
D)  7,500 years

Question 14

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?

Accepted Answer

A)  The common ancestor of all the species in the puma group dispersed from Africa more than 10 million years ago. 
B)  A land bridge between North America and Eurasia formed as a result of lowered sea levels between 4 and 7 million years ago. 
C)  The cheetahs evolved from the lynxes between 7 and 9 million years ago while Laurasia was still connected to Gondwana. 
D)  All the cats that are currently found in Africa evolved from a common ancestor in Eurasia about 9 million years ago.

Question 15

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

Accepted Answer

A)  the ingroup. 
B)  the outgroup. 
C)  a monophyletic group.

Question 16

It is estimated that the modern continents began to take shape

Accepted Answer

A)  45 million years ago. 
B)  250 million years ago. 
C)  66 million years ago. 
D)  600 million years ago.

Question 17

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

Accepted Answer

A)  the extinction of the dinosaurs in only South America. 
B)  a thin layer of potassium-40 in late Cretaceous fossil strata. 
C)  a thin layer of iridium-enriched clay in late Cretaceous fossil strata. 
D)  the warming of Earth's climate in the late Cretaceous.

Question 18

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

Accepted Answer

A)  Convergent evolution 
B)  Using vertebrate outgroups 
C)  Horizontal gene transfer 
D)  Molecular systematics

Question 19

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.

Accepted Answer

A)  parsimony 
B)  clade 
C)  exaptation 
D)  molecular clock

Question 20

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

Accepted Answer

A)  major groups of organisms; extinction 
B)  species; speciation 
C)  genes; gene duplication 
D)  families; interbreeding

Exam 15: Tracing Evolutionary History