Biology 412 Final

Front 1

Genetic drift

Back 1

The random fluctuation in allele frequency that occurs in finite populations.

Front 2

Cnidaria

Back 2

The animal phylum that is the sister group to Bilateria.

Front 3

Stephen Jay Gould

Back 3

Help to resurrect modern evo-devo with his book called Ontogeny and Phylogeny

Front 4

Ecdysozoa

Back 4

A clade of animals that includes nematodes and arthropods.

Front 5

Positive Assortative Mating

Back 5

Genotypically similar individuals are more likely to mate with each other

Front 6

Cambrian period

Back 6

Witness to the origin of nearly every modern animal phylum.

Front 7

choanoflagellates

Back 7

The sister group to all metazoans.

Front 8

mosasaurs

Back 8

Extinct relatives of snakes.

Front 9

Archean era

Back 9

Witness to the origin of life.

Front 10

Lophotrochozoa

Back 10

A clade of animals that includes annelids and mollusks.

Front 11

Bergmann’s Rule

Back 11

The observed negative correlation between body mass and temperature in warmblooded animals.

Front 12

Alfred Russell Wallace

Back 12

One of the first scientists to study biogeography and use this as evidence for evolution.

Front 13

Adaptation

Back 13

A trait that evolved by natural selection.

Front 14

Homoplasy

Back 14

Non-homologous characters due to convergence or reversals.

Front 15

Evolutionary species concept

Back 15

A single lineage of ancestor-descendant populations which maintains its identity from other such lineages and which has its own evolutionary tendencies and historical fate.

Front 16

Diversifying selection

Back 16

Individuals exhibiting the mean value for a phenotype are the least fit.

Front 17

Microevolution

Back 17

Change with inheritance over a small number of generations.

Front 18

Mesozoic period

Back 18

Known as the age of the dinosaurs.

Front 19

Alleles

Back 19

Variants present at a particular locus in the genome.

Front 20

Phenotype

Back 20

A characteristic of an organisms, or group of organisms.

Front 21

Ontology

Back 21

The study of being.

Front 22

An expectation of neutrality

Back 22

The synonymous rate of substitution equals the non-synonymous rate of
substitution

Front 23

Geodispersal

Back 23

Range expansion due to the disappearence of a geographical barrier.

Front 24

Polymorphism

Back 24

The presence of many allelic variants in a population.

Front 25

monophyly

Back 25

A group that includes an ancestor and all its descendents.

Front 26

Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium

Back 26

The null hypothesis for evolution within populations.

Front 27

Inbreeding depression

Back 27

Decrease in overall fitness of individuals in a population due to increased deleterious homozygous recessive individuals.

Front 28

Sex

Back 28

The shuffling of genetic material

Front 29

Indirect Fitness

Back 29

Fitness that an allele confers on other individuals carrying a copy of that allele.

Front 30

Another name for sex

Back 30

Copulation

Front 31

The K-T extinction

Back 31

Witness to the largest mass extinction in the history of life.

Front 32

Allopatric speciation

Back 32

Speciation through the breakup of continents.

Front 33

Altruism hypothesis

Back 33

Altruistic traits can evolve if the benefit to relatives outweighs the cost to
the donor.

Front 34

gene flow

Back 34

movement of alleles between populations due to migration of individuals carrying those alleles; mutation still has to give rise to variation in a different population

Front 35

Genetic Drift

Back 35

random fluctuations of allele frequency in populations of finite size

Front 36

Recombination

Back 36

he process by which a strand of genetic material (usually DNA; but can also be RNA) is broken and then joined to a different DNA molecule; without mutation, there wouldn’t be different variants that could recombine to form new combinations

Front 37

List an example given in class of reproductive isolation in two species that co-occur in the same region.

Back 37

Brown trout – temporal isolation
Behavioural isolation – insect songs
Fertilization barriers – marine invertebrates

Front 38

Describe why reproductive isolation is important for the speciation process (and why physical isolation alone is not enough).

Back 38

Insures that they can’t reproduce. Without reproductive isolation mechanisms in place, once
isolate populations can resume interbreeding if the physical barrier disappears.

Front 39

The biological species concept states that “species are groups of actually or potentially interbreeding populations which are reproductively isolated from other such groups”. Describe why, ontologically, this concept is strong, but epistemologically, it is difficult to apply.

Back 39

It takes into account reproduction isolation such that there can not longer be gene flow between the two species. This would ensure the speciation processs. It is difficult to recognize in nature because a lot of individuals simply don’t interbreed because they never have the opportunity (distance) and it is difficult to test in the lab because these are not natural conditions.

Front 40

Vicariance

Back 40

fragmentation of the environment (as by splitting of a tectonic plate) in contrast to dispersal as a factor in promoting biological evolution by division of large populations into isolated subpopulations

Front 41

How can one explain how beak depth can change so quickly (in just one or a few generations) from what we know about the developmental mechanisms underlying beak depth?

Back 41

Simple changes in regulation of developmental regulatory genes (BMP4) can have dramatic changes in beak size.

Front 42

Using an example of a pathway/gene given in class (Hox, Dll, Mads-Box), explain why the
quote “Nature is prodigal in variety, but sparing in innovation” appropriately describes the
lessons we have learned from modern studies of evolutionary developmental biology

Back 42

All of these organisms have the same genetic pathway. Phenotypic diversity is generated NOT by
the evolution of new pathways, but by simple changes in the regulation of these pathways in time and space.

Front 43

Hox

Back 43

conserved general role in axial patterning in all of animals

Front 44

Dll

Back 44

conserved role in specifying a secondary axis (appendage).

Front 45

Mads-box

Back 45

conserved role is specifying whorl identity.

Front 46

Give one example of a trait in figs that you think evolved by natural selection and describe how this trait might be an adaptation to its pollinator.

Back 46

-Chemical cues – attract pollinator
-Shape of ostiole-fit the head of the wasp
-morphology – style length fits ovipositer, but different lengths encourage the wasp explore different flowers and pollinate them as she tries them out.

Front 47

Give one example of a trait in wasps that you think evolved by natural selection and describe how this trait might be an adaptation to its host.

Back 47

-Males-specialized mouthparts to bore holes.
-Females mouth parts and legs adapted for entering ostiole.
-Female pouches to hold pollen

Front 48

Briefly describe macroevolutionary evidence that would support your hypothesis that figs/wasps have a close coevolutionary relationship.

Back 48

Congruence in speciation patterns

Front 49

Briefly describe an experiment that could be used to test whether one of the traits of interest (fig or wasp) is adaptive (this was not given in class so you will have to use your creativity in designing a simple experiment).

Back 49

Most straight-forward examples would be inter-species swaps:
For example: wasp head/fig osteole fit like lock and key; ovipostor/style fit like lock and key;
chemical cues emitted by fig are wasp specific.
One could rear non-coevolved wasps/figs and look at fitness (offspring production) in both figs
and wasps.

Front 50

What ratio of heterozygotes to homozygotes are produced with inbreeding/selfing occurring in the population?

Back 50

fewer heterozygotes and more homozygotes than expected