Evolution and Speciation
Define evolution. Why is it inaccurate for creationists to tout evolution as âjust a theoryâ? (Think about what theory actually means in scientific terms vs. the use of the word âtheoryâ in casual conversations).
Explain what the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium shows and describe the conditions necessary for the equilibrium to be maintained.
Explain what factors cause populations to diverge from the Hardy- Weinberg equilibrium and how each factor causes the change.
Describe how species evolve via natural selection. (Be sure to discuss the key aspects of natural selection: variation, heredity differential survival and reproductive success in your answer).
What does speciation mean and how can it occur?
What does adaptation mean? Why is natural selection the only agent of evolutionary change that leads to adaptation? (Think about how natural selection works).
Is natural selection all powerful? Can it create any variation that you or I could think of? Why or why not?
Differentiate between natural and sexual selection.
What is reproductive isolation?
Describe prezygotic and postzygotic mechanisms of reproductive isolation and explain how they can contribute to speciation.
Distinguish between allopatric and sympatric speciation and explain how each leads to new species.
What is adaptive radiation?
Be able to read and interpret phylogenetic trees: be able to determine which species are most closely related to each other, what nodes represent, where common ancestors would be located, etc.
What are paraphyletic, polyphyletic and monophyletic groups within a phylogeny?
Evolution and Speciation
Define evolution. Why is it inaccurate for creationists to tout evolution as âjust a theoryâ? (Think about what theory actually means in scientific terms vs. the use of the word âtheoryâ in casual conversations).
Explain what the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium shows and describe the conditions necessary for the equilibrium to be maintained.
Explain what factors cause populations to diverge from the Hardy- Weinberg equilibrium and how each factor causes the change.
Describe how species evolve via natural selection. (Be sure to discuss the key aspects of natural selection: variation, heredity differential survival and reproductive success in your answer).
What does speciation mean and how can it occur?
What does adaptation mean? Why is natural selection the only agent of evolutionary change that leads to adaptation? (Think about how natural selection works).
Is natural selection all powerful? Can it create any variation that you or I could think of? Why or why not?
Differentiate between natural and sexual selection.
What is reproductive isolation?
Describe prezygotic and postzygotic mechanisms of reproductive isolation and explain how they can contribute to speciation.
Distinguish between allopatric and sympatric speciation and explain how each leads to new species.
What is adaptive radiation?
Be able to read and interpret phylogenetic trees: be able to determine which species are most closely related to each other, what nodes represent, where common ancestors would be located, etc.
What are paraphyletic, polyphyletic and monophyletic groups within a phylogeny?
Related textbook solutions
Related questions
Question 5
Which of the following is FALSE:
| Natural selection has foresight, and can mold organisms in accordance with environments in the far future. This is why organisms have a good "fit" to their environments long after they have arisen through speciation. |
| Selection is an undirected process that can only ever work with the materials at hand. |
| Human beings have foresight because they possess brains that can think about possible outcomes and the consequences of actions. This is different to a process like natural selection. |
| The fact that natural selection has no foresight does not mean that it is incapable of producing beings that have foresight. |
Question 6
The wings of bats, birds and flying insects are examples of:
| Convergently evolved traits (at least in terms of their basic functionality). |
| Homologous traits. |
| Plesiomorphies. |
| None of the above. |
Question 7
The effect of a trait depends on the environment because:
| Organisms decide to change their behavior every so often to evade predators. |
| It is only ever in the context of an environment that these traits can exist, and whether they assist the organism or inhibit it will depend on the particularities of that environment in which it must interact. |
| Sexual selection will not tolerate wasteful and extravagant displays. |
| The environment is changing too fast for the organism to keep up with in terms of its conscious appreciation of it, so it must rely on its traits to do the work. |
Question 8
Which of the following is TRUE:
| Natural selection is not random; mutation is random; speciation is necessarily driven by natural selection. |
| Natural selection is not random; mutation is random; speciation is not necessarily driven by natural selection. |
| Natural selection is random; drift is random; speciation is not necessarily driven by natural selection. |
| Natural selection is not random; mutation is random; speciation must occur through the evolution of pre-zygotic barriers to mating. |
Question 9
Heritability is:
| The same as inheritance. |
| Another way of stating the degree to which a trait is genetic (for example, you could say that the color of your skin is "80 percent genetic and 20 percent environmental") |
| The proportion of variance of a trait in a population that is attributable to genetic variance in that population. |
| Present in populations, but not necessary for evolution by natural selection. |
