Biology Exam #1 (2015)

The pitcher plant and Venus' flytrap use leaves to trap and digest insects. The cactus plant's leaves are modified into small spines, which reduce water loss and can protect the plant from plant-eaters. These 3 leaf types have different shapes and functions, but are derived from a common ancestral form. Therefore these 3 leaf types are _____________.

Studies of birth weight in humans have provided good examples of selection. Babies that are heavier or lighter than average did not survive as well as babies of average weight. Human birth weight is therefore an example of ____________.

The structural similarities between the flipper of a dolphin and the arm of a human suggest that ______________.

Cliff swallows in Nebraska, depend on insects for their livelihood. Severe cold snaps totally devastated the population. When scientists analyzed all the dead birds, they determined that birds with a small wing span and asymmetrical wing shapes were disproportionately represented in the dead birds. Surviving birds were larger and more symmetrical. The type of natural selection for size and symmetry is ________________.

In the Scrub Jay, older siblings usually remain near the nest and assis their parents in raising a new crop of young. This behavior promotes the reproduction of their own alleles, which are present in the new crop of young birds. This behavior is an example of ______________.

DNA changes over time. From generation to generation, both genetic and epigenetic changes occur and are passed on. Therefore, according to the "left wall of minimal complexity" hypothesis shown below

Which one of the following statements is false with regard to natural selection?

"Gradually, the gene pool changes in favor of the two extreme spine number types. __________________ works against those phenotypes that fall into the midrange of values." What term is missing in the preceding sentence?

Biologists studied a population of lizards. They found that small lizards had trouble defending their territories and that large lizards were more likely than small or medium lizards to be preyed upon by owls. Which of the following graphs represents the most likely distribution for body size in this lizard population?

Fish embryos, human embryos, and chicken embryos all have pharyngeal arches (gill slits/pharyngeal pouches) and a post-anal tail. What best explains these similarities?

The wings and body of this speckled emperor moth mimic the face of an animal. If a bird is sneaking up on this moth and is about to eat it, this mimicry of a possible predator that might eat the bird will startle the bird, and might give the moth a fraction of a second in which to escape. This mimicry is an example of a __________________.

In a certain insect species, body color varies from very light gray to very dark gray. These insects are eaten by birds that find their prey by sight. A brush fire occurs, blackening the ground where one population of this insect species lives. Which of the following is most likely to occur over the next few years?

In order for the label "natural selection" to be correct for the illustration, there is a necessary condition that must be present in "1": ___________.

Scientists measured the average body size in a bird population over time. One year, a period of cold weather killed many of the birds. A few generations later, the scientists observed that the average body size in the population was larger than it had been before the cold weather. The scientists concluded that the population had evolved through natural selection. Which one of the following would provide the best evidence to support the scientists' conclusion?

Which of the following is an example of Darwinian competition?

Darwin found several closely related species of this animal in the Galapagos Islands, and this discovery was eventually important to his thinking about evolution by means of natural selection.

How were strata dated in Charles Darwin's lifetime?

If 2 different species share a homologous structure, _______________.

The adaptive radiation of the dozen or so species of Darwin's Finches in the Galapagos Islands (and nearby Cocos Islands), as illustrated here, is an example of ___________.

Comparison of the anatomy of vertebrae forelimbs was important for Charles Darwin because the bones supported the hypothesis of _________.

In humans, cheetahs, whales, and bats, the forelimbs contain the same bones in the same relative positions, but the functions of the forelimbs of these animals are different. We say that these forelimbs are homologous structures and that their structural similarity is caused by the fact that _____________.

In some burrowing snakes the eyes are completely hidden beneath the scales and are useless for vision. Ancestors of these species had normal eyes used for vision. The hidden eyes of burrowing snakes are _____________.

The peppered moths in populations in England range from light-colored to dark-colored. During the Industrial Revolution, dark soot covered trees. Air pollution killed the light-colored lichens that had grown on the trees. Peppered moth populations became predominantly dark-colored, because these dark-colored moths were better able to avoid predation: they were camouflaged on the dark trees. This change in population composition of the moths was an example of ___________.

The main sources of genetic variation among humans is _______________.

Why was the age of Earth important for Darwin's ideas about evolution?

Every now and then, news reports announce a new antibiotic that bacteria cannot become resistant to. What is the best attitude of a scientist to have regarding this type of news report.

The Galapagos Islands are home to more than a dozen species of closely related finches, some found only on a single island. The most striking differences among them are ___________, which are ____________. Understanding this phenomenon was important for Charles Darwin's thinking about evolution and how evolution came about.

The passage from Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" read in discussion was _________________.

We know that Darwin was greatly influenced by the geologist Lyell, and also by the 3 geology volumes that Lyell published. A major idea championed by Lyell and used by Darwin was that _____________.

The theory of blending inheritance ___________________.

How can the Darwinian concept of descent with modification explain the evolution of such complex structures as the vertebrate eye?

It is incorrect to say "evolution inevitably leads to increased complexity." For example, there are many examples of organisms that are simpler (less complex) than their ancestors. Examples include _______________.

In a famous experiment, Weismann cut off the tails of 1500 rats over 20 generations, and never got rats born without tails as a result of this mutilation. His experiment supports the conclusion that _______________.

In a population in which a trait is exposed to stabilizing selection over time, ______________.

Charles Darwin's 4 Postulates can be summarized succinctly as __________________.

Which one of the following statements about human races is/are correct, according to what was taught in this course?

Radiometric dating is sometimes wrong by _______________.

Why is 14C never used to date the extinction of dinosaurs?

Evolutionary biologists apply evolution theories to the study of religion and morals. As demonstrated in lecture, this application of evolution theories is especially likely to involve the _______________.

Is it possible for an individual to have a mutation that increases its relative fitness but does not result in an increase in the number of offspring the individual produces?

Paleobiologist George Simpson's famous analogy of ____________ is a hat containing several sets of the 26 letters of the English alphabet written on slips of paper, on letter per slip of paper. If you were to draw out letters at random, chances are poor that they would sell C, A, and T in that order. But if each time you picked a slip, you threw it away if it was not C, A, or T and returned it to the hat if it was one of those 3 letters, soon you would have mostly Cs, As, and Ts in the hat. Your chances of pulling C-A-T (in that order) would keep improving, until eventually you would draw them in the proper order

According to ______________, the natural habits of a creature would inevitably lead to a modification of its anatomical structure. By wading in shallow water, a bird would stretch its legs in order to keep its body above the surface, and automatically acquire longer legs. Once this addition was acquired, it would be passed on to the next generation. The lack of use of a structure would automatically lead to its shrinkage, and this too would be inherited by the successors.

Which one is Dobzhansky's famous and controversial quotation about evolution that is so popular among scientists?

There are many different parent-daughter combinations of isotopes that can be used for radiometric dating. Also, different radioisotopes decay in different ways: alpha particles, beta particles, gamma rays, etc. When the same specimen is tested using different parent-daughter combinations of isotopes, including those which decay in different ways, the results are the same. This supports _____________