Campbell Biology 13-15

Front 1

What broad set of ideas was established by the work of Lamarck, Lyell, and Darwin?

Back 1

Earth and its life are ancient and ever-changing; fossils document the evolution of life-forms over time.

Front 2

Which of the following lists of assumptions was part of Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection?

Back 2

1. Organisms vary in heritable ways.
2. Some traits improve the survival and reproduction of individuals who possess them.
3. Populations produce more offspring than their environment can support, so individual organisms must compete for limited resources.
4. Earth and its life are very old.

Front 3

Which best describes the fossil record?

Back 3

The fossil record is the highly ordered sequence in which fossils are found in layers of sedimentary rock.

Front 4

The forelimbs of humans, cats, and bats have a number of detailed similarities in their construction. What best explains these similarities?

Back 4

The forelimbs are similar because all of these organisms inherited the basic forelimb design from a common ancestor.

Front 5

Variation among _____ within a _____ makes microevolution possible.

Back 5

individuals … population

Front 6

According to the Hardy-Weinberg principle, the frequencies of alleles in a population will remain constant if _____ is the only process that affects the gene pool.

Back 6

sexual reproduction

Front 7

A population of small fish lives in a lake with a sandy bottom. The major predator of these fish is a wading bird that hunts by sight. Most of the fish are light sandy brown, but about 10% are mottled. The color pattern is heritable. A construction company dumps a load of gravel in the bottom of the lake, giving it a mottled appearance. Which of these statements presents the most accurate prediction?

Back 7

The proportion of mottled fish will increase over time.

Front 8

Which best describes how an organism's Darwinian fitness is measured?

Back 8

the organism's reproductive success relative to other individuals in the same population

Front 9

Blue poppies native to China are grown at a plant-breeding center in California, where those with the thickest leaves survive and reproduce best in the drier climate. This evolutionary adaptation of the poppies to their new environment is due to _____.

Back 9

directional selection

Front 10

Certain bacterial strains have traits that allow them to resist the effects of antibiotic drugs. How do the resistance traits arise in a bacterial population, and under what circumstances will the resistance traits be most common?

Back 10

The resistance traits are produced by chance mutations and are present to varying degrees in most bacterial populations. Resistance traits will be most prevalent, however, in bacteria that are chronically exposed to antibiotic drugs.

Front 11

Charles Darwin's main focus was on the gradual process of adaptation within populations. This form of change _____.

Back 11

cannot account for increases in species diversity over time

Front 12

Two animals are considered members of different biological species if they _____.

Back 12

are male and female, but cannot interbreed

Front 13

Often, the morphological species concept is used to define and describe species. Why?

Back 13

This is the most convenient way of identifying species, and it is one of the few ways to identify fossil or asexual species.

Front 14

The following options are all reproductive barriers. Which one is an example of a prezygotic barrier in which the two different species do mate?

Back 14

Two dragonfly species regularly mate, but their gametes are incompatible.

Front 15

Which of these is an example of temporal isolation?

Back 15

One species is diurnal (day active) and mates at high noon; the other is nocturnal (night active) and mates at midnight.

Front 16

What is the first step in allopatric speciation?

Back 16

geographic isolation

Front 17

Sympatric speciation is _____.

Back 17

the appearance of a new species in the same area as its parent species

Front 18

_____ generated many key crop plant species in the past, and continues to be an important method for plant geneticists today.

Back 18

sympatric speciation by polyploidy

Front 19

The evolution of numerous ecologically diverse species from a single ancestor in a relatively short time period, as seen in Darwin's finches, is called _____.

Back 19

adaptive radiation

Front 20

According to the _____ model, evolution occurs in spurts: Species evolve relatively rapidly and then remain unchanged for long periods.

Back 20

punctuated equilibrium

Front 21

Earth probably formed _____ years ago, and the earliest evidence of life comes from fossils that are _____ years old.

Back 21

4.6 billion … 3.5 billion

Front 22

Stanley Miller's experiments involved generating electrical sparks (simulating lightning) in a lifeless vessel containing hydrogen gas, water vapor, methane, and ammonia. The result was that _____.

Back 22

amino acids and other complex molecules formed in the vessel. This suggested that many of the organic building blocks of life could have arisen on a lifeless early Earth

Front 23

Which of the options places major events in the history of life on Earth in the proper chronological order from earliest to most recent?

Back 23

first prokaryotes → photosynthesis → first multicellular eukaryotes → first large life on land

Front 24

Radiometric dating _____.

Back 24

is based on the idea that radioactive isotopes decay at a steady rate in fossils and associated rocks

Front 25

What was Pangaea?

Back 25

a huge unified land mass that broke up, leading to the formation of the present-day continents

Front 26

Mass extinctions _____.

Back 26

eliminated many species that were lost forever, but also were followed by diversification of the survivors

Front 27

According to the findings of researchers in the field known as "evo-devo," what kinds of genetic changes are often involved in reshaping the body forms of organisms?

Back 27

Changes in genes that control development have big effects by altering the developmental process.

Front 28

Two species that share similar homologous structures probably _____.

Back 28

evolved from a common ancestor that also had the structure

Front 29

Which outgroup could be used in a phylogenetic analysis of relationships among all of the existing families of birds?

Back 29

a crocodile

Front 30

Systematic biologists have used a wide variety of traits to reconstruct the phylogenies of particular groups of organisms. Which type of trait can also be analyzed to estimate the divergence times between taxa?

Back 30

gene sequences