Exam 1

• What is a random component of evolution via natural selection?

  
  

  Errors in DNA replication
• What evidence is there for the evolution of cetaceans?

  Fossils

  Synapomorphies

  Phylogeny based on fossils

  Analysis of isotopic ratios

  Present-day observations of gene expression

  Phylogeny based on DNA of extant marine cetaceans
• What evidence is there for the evolution of viruses?

  Direct observation of new adaptations and species arising withing a human lifetime

  Synapomorphies

  Present-day observations of gene expressions

  Phylogeny based on DNA of extant marine cetaceans

  Reassortment of DNA to create evolutionary lineages
• What are the similarities and differences in the evolution of marine cetaceans and viruses

  Similarities: both adapt to the environment, and evolution is pushed by selective pressures

  Differences: Differ in complexity and how long it takes for evolution to occur
• What is evolution?

  Change in allele or trait frequencies from one generation to the next
• What was "creationism" called when it was accepted as the best explanation of life? When was that? Who wrote the book?

  Natural Theology

  1802

  William Paley
• Carolus Linneaus: What are they known for?

  Classification of life into taxonomic hierarchy
• Robert Hooke: What are they known for?

  Idea that bodies are natural machines
• Gorges Buffon: What are they known for?

  Proponent of evolution before Darwin
• Gorges Cuvier: What are they known for?

  Father of paleontology, didn't believe in evolution
• Baptiste-Lamark: What are they known for?

  Adaptation occurs through the inheritance of acquired characteristics
• Thomas Malthus: What are they known for?

  Populations, poor compete for resources, populations occur faster than our food grows
• Alfred Russel Wallace: What are they known for?

  patterned life after darwin. Evolution believer
• R.A. Fisher: What are they known for?

  Proved Quantitative traits can be inherited if several genes are involved
• Sewall Wright: What are they known for?

  Genetic Drift
• JBS Haldane: What are they known for?

  incorporating selection into Wright's models of genetic drift
• Theodosius Dobzhansky: What are they known for?

  merged Mendel's laws of inheritance with Darwin's theory of natural selection
• Motoo Kimura: What are they known for?

  Neutral theory of molecular evolution
• T or F: Darwin was an ardent supporter of evolution his whole life

  False
• What is natural theology?

  The study of God and religious truths through reason and observation of the natural world.
• What is the Modern Synthesis?

  Intergrates all scientific work on evolution up to 1940 and declares evolution to be the central principle of biology
• What is the neutral theory of evolution?

  Evolution without selection due to mutations and genetic drift, concludes most of genome evolves neutrally.
• How did we estimate how old the earth is?

  radio active decay of atoms and their isotopes was used to radiometrically date rocks.
• T or F: Carbon isotope ratios of rocks can be used to detect the presence of life

  True
• What types of organisms are found in the earliest fossils?

  Bacteria and Archaea
• How many times did multicellularity evolve?

  2 or more time
• When did eukaryotes appear on land and how do we know?

  480 mya; fossil tracks
• How old are the earliest human fossils?

  200,000 yo
• When did flowers first evolve and was it before or after insects?

  136 mya, after insects
• How old are the oldest fossils we've discovered?

  >3 billion yo
• If several trees are equally parsimonious, we can construct a .... with polytomies.

  Consensus tree
• T or F: Phylogenies are hypotheses about evolutionary history based on the available evidence, phylogenies can be used to derive testable hypotheses with additional evidence.

  True
• What is homoplasy, how does it occur, and why does it complicate the inference of evolutionary history?

  Occurs when a shared character state is not due to common descent. Occurs through convergent evolution or evolutionary reversion back to ancestral state. Makes it more difficult to identify synapomorphies.
• Members of the same clade have...

  Homologous traits, a common ancestor, and synapomorphies
• T or F: A dated phylogeny indicates that Y is older than 50 million years.

  True
• What's a polytomy?

  Node on a phylogeny where more than two lineages descend from a single ancestral lineages.
• What is an outgroup?

  Organism that is most distantly related of all organisms in the tree
• How do we know that feathers evolved before flight?

  Feathers appeared in the fossil record before wings
• How could we best measure the degree of relatedness of two taxa in a time-calibrated phylogeny?

  Measure the horizontal branch length between them
• What is included in the central dogma of biology?

  DNA encodes heritable information.

  DNA is transcribed into RNA.

  RNA is translated into Proteins.

  DNA replicates.