Deck 4: Genes and Their Evolution: Population Genetics

Question 1

What is a point mutation that does NOT result in a change to the amino acid for which it is coded?

A)spontaneous mutation
B)synonymous mutation
C)selective mutation
D)stabilizing mutation

Answer 1

synonymous mutation

Question 2

How can humans become infected with malaria?

A)having the parasite enter the blood while being fed on by infected mosquitoes
B)having a genetic mutation which manifests as the disease
C)drinking bad water
D)eating spoiled food

Answer 2

having the parasite enter the blood while being fed on by infected mosquitoes

Question 3

What are all of the alleles contained within a group of interbreeding individuals together known as?

A)a gene pool
B)a population
C)a clinal distribution
D)a polymorphism

Answer 3

a gene pool

Question 4

Australian aborigines are an endogamous society.This means that marriage and reproduction take place within the group.What does this lead to?

A)increased genetic diversity through genetic drift
B)migration without gene flow
C)more genetic diversity than would be observed in an exogamous society
D)decreased genetic diversity due to a lack of admixture

Question 5

The type of selection that favored progressively larger brain size in human evolution is ________ selection.

A)natural
B)directional
C)stabilizing
D)disruptive

Question 6

The southern migration of which African people may have led to a significant increase in the incidence of malaria?

A)Masai
B)Turkana
C)Efe
D)Bantu

Question 7

What is the cause of the significant difference between the ABO and MN blood-type frequencies of the Dunkers and those of current American and German populations?

A)genetic drift
B)natural selection
C)gene flow
D)mutation

Question 8

What is the physical location of a gene within the genome called?

A)the chromosome
B)the nucleus
C)the address
D)the locus

Question 9

Transposable elements are DNA sequences that:

A)are not coded to produce proteins.
B)contain numerous point mutations.
C)occur only on the X and Y chromosomes.
D)can copy themselves into entirely new areas of the chromosomes.

Question 10

Some genetic disorders decrease susceptibility to malaria.What is an example of a genetic disorder that has this effect?

A)G6PD deficiency (favism)
B)Klinefelter's syndrome
C)Huntington's chorea
D)leucism

Question 11

When individuals of the same species are reproductively isolated,genetic differences may accumulate in sufficient number so that new species could emerge.What would such an event be an example of?

A)spontaneous mutation
B)balanced polymorphism
C)equilibrium
D)macroevolution

Question 12

Which of the evolutionary forces is most likely to decrease variation between populations?

A)gene flow
B)the founder effect
C)mutation
D)natural selection

Question 13

In certain species of nonhuman primates there are groups where only one dominant female has access to mates.The other females must wait until the opportunity to mate presents itself.This will have direct impact on "fitness," influencing which of the following?

A)reproductive success
B)aggressiveness
C)strength
D)age at death

Question 14

Evolution is complicated and manifest in many ways,but at the root of it all physical anthropologists define it as:

A)the rise of a new species
B)a change in allele frequencies in a breeding population over time
C)a change in the DNA of an individual over his or her lifetime
D)any process that occurs over extremely long periods of time

Question 15

Mutations in DNA found in which cells are most likely to have significant evolutionary consequences?

A)gametes
B)red blood cells
C)skin pigment cells
D)brain cells

Question 16

What is likely the cause of the clinal decrease in type B blood from East Asia to Western Europe?

A)the founder effect
B)stabilizing selection
C)a mutation
D)gene flow

Question 17

While conducting research with a small population in South America,you note that an overwhelming majority of individuals exhibit signs of a specific genetic abnormality.What is most likely the cause of this?

A)natural selection
B)founder effect
C)extinction
D)gene flow

Question 18

What is another name for the evolutionary force called gene flow?

A)"founder effect"
B)"disruptive selection"
C)"admixture"
D)"transposition"

Question 19

What does the Hardy-Weinberg law of equilibrium assume?

A)strong selection pressure on the trait(s)being studied
B)a significant mutation rate from generation to generation
C)gene flow that is equal both into and out of the population
D)no gene flow,mutation,or natural selection

Question 20

How do we know that Upper Paleolithic food foragers in Europe are ancestors to modern European populations?

A)recent genetic research
B)archaeological evidence
C)evidence that both populations lived in the same area
D)linguistic evidence

Question 21

What is a random change in allele frequencies over time known as?

A)genetic drift
B)gene flow
C)admixture
D)gene migration

Question 22

Studies of Galápagos finches have found that at certain points in time all finches on the island have either wide beaks or sharp narrow beaks.What is the type of evolution that leads to this phenotype distribution?

A)directional selection
B)natural selection
C)disruptive selection
D)stabilizing selection

Question 23

What effect does natural selection have on population variation?

A)It increases variation.
B)It decreases variation.
C)It both increases and decreases variation.
D)It does not affect variation.

Question 24

Over a period of two generations,the frequency of green dung beetles in a population shifts from 75% to 71% while the frequency of brown dung beetles within this population shifts from 25% to 29%.What is this is an example of?

A)macroevolution
B)microevolution
C)millievolution
D)nanoevolution

Question 25

What is the cause of spontaneous mutation?

A)unknown causes
B)X-rays
C)toxic chemicals
D)UV radiation

Question 26

Which of the following defines natural selection?

A)survival of the fittest
B)nonrandom elimination of alleles
C)upward progression
D)random changes in organisms' genetic make-up

Question 27

In a classroom taste test for PTC the genotype frequency was determined to be P = .35 and Q = .65.After applying the Hardy-Weinberg equation,what was the percentage of genotypes found to be?

A)p2 = 0.12;2pq = 0.46;q2 = 0.42
B)p2 = 0.35;2pq = 0.00;q2 = 0.65
C)p2 = 0.12;2pq = 0.65;q2 = 0.23
D)p2 = 0.20;2pq = 0.20;q2 = 0.60

Question 28

What are patrilocal societies expected to display?

A)greater mtDNA diversity than Y chromosome diversity
B)roughly equivalent mtDNA and Y chromosome diversity
C)greater Y chromosome diversity than mtDNA diversity
D)no strong correlation between societal structure and genetic diversity

Question 29

A study of Galápagos finches after a long period of drought found that all species of finch on one of the islands had wide beaks well adapted to break open seeds.The type of evolution that leads to this phenotype distribution is ________ selection.

A)directional
B)natural
C)disruptive
D)stabilizing

Question 30

An individual who displays the disease sickle-cell anemia must have inherited the deleterious allele from both phenotypically normal parents.What,therefore,is this individual?

A)homozygous with two dominant alleles
B)homozygous with two recessive alleles
C)heterozygous,with one dominant and one recessive allele
D)haplozygous

Question 31

Why are frameshift mutations more likely to have an impact at the phenotypic level?

A)They are the result of a change in a single nucleotide.
B)They are the result of exposure to radiation.
C)They produce a protein having no function.
D)They involve mobile pieces of DNA that can copy themselves.

Question 32

What is the mutation known as trisomy 21,in which an extra copy of chromosome 21 is present,more commonly known as?

A)Turner syndrome
B)Down syndrome
C)Klinefelter's syndrome
D)Williams syndrome

Question 33

Fitness trade-off refers to selection favoring which genotype?

A)homozygous dominant
B)homozygous recessive
C)heterozygous
D)no genotype is favored

Question 34

Familial hypercholesterolemia,an autosomal dominant disease,is five times more frequent in the Afrikaner population of South Africa than in the original population of Europe from which the ancestors to the Afrikaners immigrated.What does this demonstrate?

A)natural selection
B)bottleneck
C)the founder effect
D)kin selection

Question 35

A genetic study conducted over two generations found that the frequencies of genotypes in the first generation were AA: 0.36,Aa: 0.48,aa: 0.16.In the second generation,genotype frequencies remained the same.According to Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium,what can we assume?

A)Negative assortative mating has maintained gene frequencies.
B)Mutations have likely occurred,resulting in the same frequency.
C)Mating in this population is random.
D)The population is small and we cannot detect change.

Question 36

What is a cause of the absence of the A and B alleles in Native American populations?

A)natural selection
B)gene flow
C)the founder effect
D)mutation

Question 37

Will a frameshift mutation have a larger effect than a point mutation? Why or why not?

A)Yes,a frameshift mutation will have a larger effect because whereas a point mutation may cause no change at all,a frameshift mutation causes every codon to be read incorrectly from the point of the mutation downstream.
B)Yes,a frameshift mutation will have a larger effect because the protein it produces is fully functional and can result in a chromosomal trisomy.
C)No,a point mutation will have a larger effect because a point mutation may cause an amino acid to be replaced in a protein chain,which could significantly alter the function of the protein.
D)No,a frameshift mutation will not have a larger effect because it involves the same steps as a point mutation does,and small and large effects are equally likely.

Question 38

You are reading a scientific article about cheetahs that have stripes down their backs instead of spots.The article refers to this as a genetic mutation.Though they have no negative impact on the cheetahs' fitness,why are the stripes nevertheless considered a genetic mutation?

A)Mutations are often adaptively neutral.
B)Mutations always emerge as evolutionary disadvantages eventually.
C)Mutations never have an effect on the phenotype.
D)Mutations only cause inconsequential changes in appearance.

Question 39

What type of animal does the best-documented case of industrial melanism involve?

A)Galápagos finches
B)dung beetles
C)monarch butterflies
D)peppered moths

Question 40

What is the evolution of the modern horse with a single hoof on each limb from a dog-sized ancestral species with multiple digits an example of?

A)macroevolution
B)stabilizing selection
C)disruptive selection
D)microevolution

Question 41

Which of the following is an example of adaptation?

A)A population of finches develops robust beaks in response to a change in food supply.
B)An island population derived from a small group of castaways has an unusually high prevalence of a rare genetic disease
C)A rare mutant allele for a medicinally beneficial chemical is lost in a plant population residing in a tropical forest fragment
D)The last black-footed ferret dies in captivity

Question 42

Why is the incidence of sickle-cell anemia an excellent example of a "balanced polymorphism," in which two or more alleles are maintained by natural selection in a population?

Question 43

Why is the peppered moth an excellent example of directional selection?

Question 44

Which of the following is an example of balanced polymorphism?

A)the O blood type among Native Americans
B)sickle-cell anemia
C)Huntington's chorea
D)the B blood type distribution in Europe and Asia

Question 45

Why is a frameshift mutation far more likely to lead to a defective protein than a point mutation?

Question 46

Explain how the founder effect can lead to a descendent population that differs greatly from its parent population over a relatively short period of time.

Question 47

What is a reproductive population,and what is its importance in the study of evolution,from the point of view of physical anthropology? How is this concept operationalized in the study of fossil species?