Question

1. The Brazil nut tree, Bertholletia excels (n = 17), is native to tropical rain forests of South America. It is a hardwood tree that can grow to over 50 meters tall, a source of high-quality lumber, and a favorite nesting site for harpy eagles. As the rainy season ends, tough-walled fruits, each containing 8-25 seeds (Brazil nuts), fall to the forest floor. Brazil nuts are composed primarily of endosperm. About $50 million worth of nuts are harvested each year. Scientists have discovered that the pale yellow flowers of Brazil nut trees cannot fertilize themselves and admit only female orchid bees as pollinators. The agouti (Dasyprocta spp.), a cat-sized rodent, is the only animal with teeth strong enough to crack the hard wall of Brazil nut fruits. It typically eats some of the seeds, buries others, and leaves still others inside the fruit, which moisture can then enter and allow the remaining seeds to germinate.

The large white part of a Brazil nut that people eat serves which of the following functions in nature?

A. It serves as protection for the embryo from agoutis looking for food.

B. It attracts harpy eagles and encourages them to nest in the tree.

C. It provides energy and nutrition to a germinating seedling.

D. It provides a water source for the developing embryo.

2. Scarlet gilia (Ipomopsis aggregata) usually has red flowers in an inflorescence of up to 250 flowers. In certain populations in the Arizona mountains, however, the flowers range from red to pink to white. In early summer, most (but not all) of the flowers were red. Six to eight weeks later, the same individual plants were still present; the flowers ranged from pink to white, and few red flowers were present. The major pollinators early in the season were two species of hummingbirds active during the day; they emigrated to lower elevations, and the major pollinator later in the season was a hawk moth (a type of moth). The hawk moth was most active at sunset and later, and it preferred light pink to white flowers after dark. When hummingbirds were present, more red flowers than white flowers produced fruit. When only hawk moths were present, more white flowers produced fruit (K. N. Paige and T. G. Whitham. 1985. Individual and population shifts in flower color by scarlet gilia: A mechanism for pollinator tracking. Science 227:315-17).

Some plants continued to produce only dark (red) flowers whereas others produced lighter colored flowers later in the season. Which plants do you expect produced more fruit over the entire season?

A. those that stayed dark

B. the same numbers of fruit on both

C. those that changed their color to a lighter shade

D. the plants whose flowers were always light colored

3. Mistletoe is a plant that lives on trees and gains nutrition from them (that is, it is a parasite). The fruit of the mistletoe is a one-seeded berry and is consumed by birds. In members of the genus Viscum, the outside of the seed is viscous (sticky), which permits the seed to adhere to surfaces such as the branches of host plants or the beaks of birds. What should be expected of the fruit if the viscosity of Viscum seeds is primarily an adaptation for dispersal rather than an adaptation for infecting host plant tissues? The fruit ________.

A. secretes enzymes that can digest bark

B. is colored so as to provide it with camouflage

C. is drab in color

D. is nutritious to the dispersing organisms

4. When a scientist describes the "body plan" of a phylum, he or she is implying that ________.

A. mutations have arisen that allow only some shapes to be produced

B. animals evolve according to a pre-ordained plan

C. the body shapes we see now have been more successful than others in the past

D. organisms direct their own evolution in order to maximize their success

5. The primary difference between a coelom and a pseudocoelom is ________.

A. a coelom arises in the ectoderm, and a pseudocoelom arises in the endoderm

B. a coelom occurs in triploblastic animals, and a pseudocoelom occurs in diploblastic animals

C. their developmental origin

D. the manner in which they cushion the internal organs