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Short Answer/Essay

1 Points

Question: What is one problem associated with application of the biological species concept?

Answer:

Requires breeding experiments, doesn't apply to asexual organisms, can't use it for species separated in time, and others

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Short Answer/Essay

2 Points

Question: If a species is separated for 10,000 years, what evidence would you need to conclude that the two populations are now two separate and distinct species?

Answer:

That there is some isolating mechanism at work that causes reproductive incompatibility.

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Short Answer/Essay

2 Points

Question: Explain allopolyploidy, and give an example (real or hypothetical) that illustrates the process.

Answer:

A process of speciation initiated by hybridization of two different species. A typical allopolyploid species is derived from hybridization from two or more diploid species and chromosome doubling following the hybridization.

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Short Answer/Essay

1 Points

Question: What is the most important difference between allopatric and parapatric speciation? Which is thought to be more common?

Answer:

Presence of a geographical barrier, allopatry

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Short Answer/Essay

2 Points

Question: Discuss what Nesse and Williams mean when they describe a trade-off in "Evolution and the Origin of Disease"

Answer:

Overdesign of one system upsets balance or function of the whole organism. Sickle-cell and aging are examples that result from trade-offs.

Question 1 2 3 4 5 6

Short Answer/Essay

2 Points

Question: Explain how a cline in an abiotic factor, such as salinity in estuaries, may act to maintain genetic variation in a species that is distributed across the cline.

Answer:

The cline sets up conditions that may favor some genotypes in one part of the cline and other genotypes in other parts or regions. Taken as a whole, the species has high genetic variability because the proportion of different genotypes varies across the cline.