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9 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
Can selection create the best of all possible genes for a particular task?
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No; it has to wait for mutations to occur by chance. If "better' allele does not appear, there is nothing selection can do about it, because selection is a consequence of the confluence of certain conditions
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Define fitness.
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Higher reproductive success or higher genetic success
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What is an adaptation?
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A hereditary trait
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What is a fitness benefit?
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Refers to the positive effect of a trait on the number of surviving offspring, produced by an individual or the number of copies of its alleles that it contributes to the next generation?
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What is a fitness cost?
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Refers to the damaging effects of the trait
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What is the bottom line of an individual's reproductive success?
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The total number of his or her offspring that reach the age of reproduction
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What is the comparative method?
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Testing prediction about the evolution of an interesting trait by looking at animals other than the species whose characteristics are under investigation
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What is Occam's razor?
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Principle of parsimony; holds that simpler explanations are more likely to be correct than complex ones.
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Describe how squirrels assess their level of mobbing?
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Squirrels are less eager to approach speakers playing the rattles of larger and warmer snakes; this ability to assess the risk of snakebite enables the squirrels to reduce the costs of their mobbing behavior
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