Which of the following would most likely involve use of a molecular clock?
A) Determining whether a doctor infected someone with his HIV-positive patient's blood
B) Determining when West Nile virus arrived in the United States
C) Determining whether female preference evolved before or after the male trait in a genus of birds
D) Reconstructing the ancestral states of proteins that code for an enzyme
E) Assessing the number of times self-incompatibility evolved in a family of plants

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Molecular clocks are used to estimate the time of divergence between species based on changes in DNA or protein sequences over time. Therefore, determining when a particular virus (such as West Nile virus) arrived in a particular region would likely involve the use of a molecular clock.

Which of the Following Would Most Likely Involve Use of a Molecular