Deck 18: Organic Evolution--The Theory and Its Supporting Evidence

Question 1

What is the study of life as revealed by fossils?

A)genetics
B)paleontology
C)classification
D)history
E)geology

Answer 1

paleontology

Question 2

Biogeography is the geographic distribution of organisms.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Darwin cited embryology as supporting evidence for the theory of evolution.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Who proposed that many plants and animals have become extinct through time and that fossils differ through time?

A)Thomas Malthus
B)Georges Cuvier
C)Jean Baptiste de Lamarck
D)Charles Darwin
E)Carolus Linnaeus

Question 5

Whether a mutation is harmful or beneficial can only be judged in respect to the conditions in which the organism lives.

Question 6

Which term best indicates changes such as the origin of new species?

A)allopatric speciation
B)mutation
C)microevolution
D)macroevolution
E)genetic drift

Question 7

In a pea plant, R is the dominant allele and represents a red flower, and r is the recessive allele and represents a white flower. An organism that inherits the pair Rr will have which color flower?

A)red only
B)pink only
C)white only
D)red and white
E)This is impossible to determine.

Question 8

What is the most important aspect of Mendel's genetic studies?

A)Chance is the most critical factor in change.
B)Genes controlling traits do not blend during inheritance but are transmitted as discrete entities.
C)The traits which an organism inherits are the average of the end member alleles.
D)If particular traits do not appear within two generations, they are lost from the species.
E)Traits are controlled by single genes.

Question 9

All mutations are either harmful or beneficial.

Question 10

Darwin and _____ presented the idea of natural selection simultaneously in 1859 to the Linnaean Society in London.

A)Alfred Russel Wallace
B)Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck
C)Thomas Malthus
D)Gregor Mendel
E)Carolus Linnaeus

Question 11

Convergent evolution refers to similar characteristics that arise in closely related organisms.

Question 12

The father of modern genetics is Alfred Wallace.

Question 13

Cladistics and cladograms work well for constructing relationships among fossil organisms.

Question 14

Homologous structures probably indicate descent with modifications from a common ancestor.

Question 15

_____ is a special type of natural selection in which males compete for mates or females select mates based on such traits.

A)Mate selection
B)Breeding
C)Sexual selection
D)Cross-breeding
E)Survival of the fittest

Question 16

The science of genetics was developed based on experimental studies using fruit flies.

Question 17

Whose original concept of inheritance did Lysenko's ideas reflect?

A)Thomas Malthus
B)Georges Cuvier
C)Jean Baptiste de Lamarck
D)Charles Darwin
E)Carolus Linnaeus

Question 18

Lamarck's theory of inheritance of acquired characteristics was based on ____.

A)the discovery of DNA
B)the discovery of genes
C)the discovery of mitochondria
D)observation and interpretation
E)experiments

Question 19

Genes are the pair of controlling factors in alleles, and both have equal dominance.

Question 20

A species is ____ isolated from other species.

A)reproductively
B)physically
C)genetically
D)mentally
E)emotionally

Question 21

Structures that are superficially dissimilar but have the same structure in terms of bones, muscles, nerves, and blood vessels are best described as ____.

A)heterologous
B)homologous
C)vestigial
D)analogous
E)exogenous

Question 22

Sexual reproduction and _____ account for most variation in populations.

A)mutations
B)genetic drift
C)asexual reproduction
D)meiosis
E)mitosis

Question 23

Mutations involve some kind of change in _____.

A)species
B)chromosomes
C)alleles
D)offspring
E)populations

Question 24

What statement best describes the concept of mutation?

A)It only occurs through external influences on an organism.
B)It only occurs in sex cells AND is always inheritable.
C)It only occurs in the weakest organisms.
D)It is random in terms of fitness of organisms AND cannot be inheritable.
E)It is inheritable when occurring in sex cells AND is random in terms of fitness of organisms.

Question 25

Background extinction refers to ____.

A)the continual extinction of species
B)a small mass extinction
C)the total number of extinctions in the history of Earth
D)the extinction before a mass extinction
E)the small extinctions that make up a mass extinction

Question 26

The fossil record shows a sequence of variations based on what?

A)density of organisms
B)shape of organisms
C)size of organisms
D)different life forms
E)number of life forms

Question 27

Who proposed the modern biological classification scheme?

A)Thomas Malthus
B)Georges Cuvier
C)Jean Baptiste de Lamarck
D)Charles Darwin
E)Carolus Linnaeus

Question 28

With the Linnaean classification scheme, as one moves down the hierarchy, the categories become more ____.

A)exclusive
B)poorly defined
C)inclusive
D)general
E)broad

Question 29

Ultraviolet radiation, X-rays, and extreme temperatures are all _____.

A)chromosomes
B)populations
C)genes
D)mutagens
E)mutations

Question 30

What is the order of the expanded Linnaean classification scheme?

A)Kingdom, Class, Phylum, Order, Genus, Species, Family
B)Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Genus, Family, Order, Species
C)Kingdom, Family, Phylum, Class Order, Genus, Species
D)Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family Genus, Species
E)Kingdom, Phylum, Family, Class, Order, Genus, Species

Question 31

Which of the following is a type of body fossil?

A)trails
B)bones
C)burrows
D)coprolites (fossil feces)
E)nests

Question 32

A clade is a group of organisms ____.

A)and their most recent common ancestor
B)on a phylogenetic tree
C)that can interbreed and have fertile offspring
D)in an evolutionary line from ancestor to descendent
E)that have gone extinct

Question 33

In modern evolutionary theory, _____ evolve.

A)species
B)plants
C)animals
D)populations
E)individuals

Question 34

Linnaean classification ____.

A)relies on phylogeny
B)works well for all organisms
C)reflects all evolutionary relationships
D)is good for assigning organisms above the species level
E)does not reflect evolutionary relationships in all cases

Question 35

What term descibes populations that have similar individuals that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring?

A)mating pairs
B)families
C)breeding stock
D)species
E)genera

Question 36

What term describes an anomaly that is similar to the reappearance of an ancestral trait?

A)vestigialism
B)analogism
C)atavism
D)homologism
E)phylogeny

Question 37

Features that serve the same purpose on very dissimilar organisms are called ____.

A)heterologous
B)exogenous
C)homologous
D)analogous
E)vestigial

Question 38

During the 1930s and 1940s, a _____ view of evolution was formed.

A)neoclassical
B)modern synthesis
C)fundamentalist
D)multidimensional
E)microanalytical

Question 39

What term describes islands that were once connected to a continent?

A)vestigial
B)oceanic
C)continental
D)biogeographical
E)volcanic

Question 40

Linnaeus devised his classification scheme to provide a ____.

A)basis for the theory of evolution
B)basis for understanding the biblical creation theory
C)means to refute the theory of biblical creation
D)means to refute the theory of evolution
E)means to categorize organisms with like characteristics

Question 41

What is cladistics? How does cladistics group organisms?

Question 42

Cell division that results in cells containing only one chromosome from each pair is referred to as ____________________.

Question 43

Describe divergent evolution.

Question 44

The type of cell division in which resulting cells contain one chromosome from each pair is called ____________________.

Question 45

If in a cell, R is the dominant allele and represents blue flowers and r is the recessive allele and represents yellow flowers, an organism that inherits the pair Rr will have a(n)____________________ flower. (Indicate a color.)

Question 46

Briefly explain how the phylogeny of an extinct group can be determined.

Question 47

Describe allopatric speciation.

Question 48

According to the concept of ____________________, an ancestral species changes gradually and continuously and grades imperceptibly into a descent species.

Question 49

Genes controlling the same trait are called ____________________.

Question 50

What is phyletic gradualism?

Question 51

In addition to fossils, what are other types of evidence for evolutionary theory?

Question 52

Briefly explain why critics did not readily accept the Darwin-Wallace theory of natural selection. What possibilities did they ignore?

Question 53

The process in which changes occur in genes passed from one generation to another is called ____________________.

Question 54

____________________ are the only record of prehistoric life.

Question 55

____________________ evolution is the development of similar characteristics in distantly related organisms.

Question 56

The fossil record is biased because of selective preservation of organisms with ____________________ parts.

Question 57

Briefly explain how the concept of punctuated equilibrium is compatible with the fossil record.

Question 58

What role does the process of extinction play in the evolution of life?

Question 59

DNA is an abbreviation for ____________________.