Study Questions Exam I
Introduction and Nature of Science
1.
How many described (nonbacterial) species are there on
Earth? 
2. What percentage of species have gone extinct?
3. What is Science?
4. What are the two general types of science and how do they differ?
5. What is a scientific hypothesis?
6. Who was Henry Bates
7. What does the Batesian Mimicry Hypothsis state?
8. Describe the experiment of Pfennig et al., 2001 that tested Bates’ ideas.
9. Why do giraffes have long necks?
10. What is a scientific theory and why is it so powerful?
11. Why are fields dealing with supernatural phenomenon considered either unscientific or pseudoscientific?
Unity, Diversity and Evolution
12. What are the 7 characteristics of Life?
13. Why is the Theory of Evolution important to all biologists?
14. List the three domains of life.
15. Starting with domain, list the main taxomomic groups, from the largest (most inclusive) down to species.
16. How do you write a genus name? Species?
17. What are the multicellular kingdoms (3)?
18. When did Darwin publish "Origin of Species"?
19. What were Darwin's 5 main observations?
20. What did Darwin infer from those observations? (2 things)
21. What is meant by "unity within the diversity of life"?
22. How did Darwin's finches get to the Galapagos and why are there so
many kinds?
23. Are there blood eating birds?
24. Describe how natural selection can cause a population to change.
25. What's a one-sentence definition of evolution.
26. Do individuals evolve?
27. Can an individual undergo adaptation?
28. What is Speciation?
29. What's the difference between micro-and macroevolution?
30. What is the biological species concept?
31. What is gene flow and why does it matter?
32. Why is reproductive isolation important?
33. T or F Galapagos Tortoises are the same on all islands.
34. Why are the bones in our arms the same bones as those in a chicken?
35. How does the Theory of Evolution explain the unity of life (shared characteristics of life).
36. Why do all mammals (whales, humans, bats etc.) have fur at some point in their lives?
37. What are 5 pre-zygotic isolating mechanisms?
38. What are 3 post-zygotic barriers?
39. What are the 2 types of speciation and which one is more common?
40. How does allopatric speciation work? Does it require natural selection?
41. What happens if two isolated populations come back together and have NOT evolved reproductive isolation?
42. What is a population?
43. T or F: Speciation may involve 1 gene or many.
44. The two monkey flower species in Schemske's experiment were reproductively isolated. How?
44b. Explain Diane Dodd's (Evolution, 43:1308-13-11) fruit fly experiment. Why did she use fruit flies?
Tree Thinking
45. What is a phylogeny?
46. What two things did Linnaeus give us?
47. What is a taxon?
48. Be able to recognize a polytomy, ancestral node (branching point) and sister taxa on a phylogeny.
49. Can phylogenies change?
50. Know the parts of a phylogenetic tree and know how to read one!
51. What's a clade? What's a monophyletic group? Why are they important in classification?
52. What is convergent evolution?
53. What do convergent evolution and common ancestry have in common?
54. The tree of life (of the Domains) is largely based on what kind of data?
55. Draw the simple tree of life. (simple branching pattern of 3 Domains)
56. What does a systematist do?
56b. What is taxonomy?
56c. Who uses phylogenies?
57. What is the non-tree alternative depiction of how the three domains evolved?
58. Why is it possible to say LUCA may have been a community?
59.
60. What types of environments can extremophile Archaeans be found in?
61. What do Archaeans and Eukaryotes have in common?
62. What do Archaeans and bacteria have in common?
63, When did Archaea first appear?
64. Who discovered them, when and using what type of data?
65. Are all Archaeans extremophiles?
Be sure to have 1 or 2 #2 pencils on Friday!!!