Spring 2005 -- Second Hour Examination
1. What is the biological species concept? What are its strengths and weaknesses?
2. What is the allopatric speciation model?
3. What is sympatric speciation?
4. Distinguish between pre-zygotic and post-zygotic isolating mechanisms and give examples of each. Which are most likely to evolve first, and why?
5. What is polyploidy? In what kinds of organisms has polyploidy been most important?
6. What is electrophoresis? What is the relevance of electrophoresis to the study of evolution?
7. Distinguish between the selectionist and neutralist explanations for high levels of genetic variation in natural populations.
8. What is heterosis = heterozygote superiority = hybrid vigor? Give an example (the one involving sickle-cell anemia is especially appropriate here)
9. What is frequency-dependent selection? Give examples (e.g., rare male mating advantage; search image switching by predators)
10. Definition of phenetics (= numerical taxonomy)
11. Criticisms of phenetic methodology -- vulnerable to convergence
12. Construct a phenogram given a simple similarity matrix
13. Definition of a primitive character; definition of a derived character; definition of cladogram, definition of a phenogram
14. Why is cladistic methodology the preferred approach to inferring evolutionary relationships?
15. Define anagenesis; define cladogenesis
16. What is a diagnostic character? Give examples.
17. Why might organisms fall short of perfection? Give examples of poor anatomical design
18. Distinguish clearly between homology and analogy. Give examples. Why is it important to make this distinction?
19. What is convergent evolution? Give examples.
20. Compare and contrast various approaches to historical biogeography: land bridges, dispersal hypotheses, vicariance. Give examples.
21. Who was Alfred Wegener? Who was P. L. Sclater? What did they accomplish?
22. Know the six major biogeographic realms.
23. What is the rule of priority?
24. What is binomial nomenclature?
25. Who was Carl von Linné (= Linnaeus) and why is he important for biosystematics?
26. What is significant about the year 1758 and the 10th Edition of Systema Naturae?
27. Know the Linnaean Hierarchy as given in class
28. What is the definition of monophyly? Looking at a cladogram, be able to identify which OTUs constitute a monophyletic group and which do not.
29. What does OTU stand for?
30. What is a chronospecies? How does it differ from a biological species?
31. Know the major events in the sequence of the break-up of Pangaea
32. Know the biogeographic realms
33. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Why?
34. Why must birds be considered reptiles?
35. What is an adaptation? How can we know whether an attribute is or is not an adaptation?
35. What is meant by the expression "species-area relationship?"
36. According to the theory of island biogeography, what two major processed determine the number of species on islands?
37. How are rates of immigration and extinction affected by island size and distance from the source of colonists?