Spring 2005

First Hour Examination

1. Distinguish between ultimate versus proximate explanations in biology.

2. The rule of parsimony. What is it, and what is its relevance for doing science?

3. How did the following persons influence the development of Darwin's ideas about

evolution: Lyell, Malthus, Mendel, Wallace, Hutton

4. What was Lamarck's explanation for evolutionary change? How do we know that he was incorrect?

5. What were the facts that Darwin had, and the inference that he drew from them, in forming his idea of evolution by natural selection?

6. What are the three modes of natural selection? How were two of them manifest in the Bumpus house sparrow data?

7. What are the two components of Darwinian sexual selection? In general, which sex is likely to be choosy, and why? Which sex is likely to compete for mating opportunities, and why?

8. What is transcription? What is translation?

9. What is the "genetic code" and where does it reside?

10. Distinguish between mitosis and meiosis. In these two kinds of cell division, what happens to the numbers of chromosomes?

11. What do the terms diploid and haploid mean? In an organism, where do you find diploid cells? Where do you find haploid cells?

12. Distinguish between the terms phenotype and genotype.

13. What are the expected phenotypic and genotypic ratios from a monohybrid cross?

14. What important principles did Mendel's breeding experiments establish?

15. What is the evolutionary significance of sexual reproduction?

16. What is a locus? What is an allele? What is a heterozygous genotype? What is a homozygous genotype?

17. What is the Hardy-Weinberg formula, and what is its significance for the study of population genetics?

18. What is the restricted, population genetic definition of evolution?

19. In a single locus, two allele problem, given the initial allele frequencies, calculate the expected genotypic frequencies for a population.

20. What is hybrid vigor = heterosis = heterozygote superiority?

21. Explain why the allele that causes sickle cell anemia, s, exists in relatively high frequency in some parts of the world.

22. What is a balanced polymorphism? How can it be maintained in a population?

23. What is frequency-dependent selection? What can it accomplish?

Give examples.

24. What is a test cross (= back cross)? What do we mean by the term dominance as used in genetics?

25. What is non-Darwinian evolution? Genetic drift? Founder effect? Genetic bottle neck?

26. What are the assumptions of Hardy-Weinberg? That is, what conditions must be met for a population to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium?

27. What is DNA? What is the DNA complement of ATTACCGCACT (or any other nucleotide

sequence)?

28. What are trace fossils? What are body fossils? Give examples

29. In what kinds of rocks are fossils most likely to be found?

30. Distinguish between absolute and relative dating

31. What are the sources of bias in the fossil record?

32. In stratigraphy, what is the uniform law of superposition?

33. Distinguish between the terms homology and analogy. Give examples of each. Why is it important to distinguish between homology and analogy?

34. What it the maximum number of alleles that a single individual organism can have at a single locus?

35. What is the definition of a population?

36. What is meant by the term "geologic range?"

37. What is the "scala naturae" (= ladder of being)? What is the Platonic idea of "ideal types?"