Download BIO RB Evolution Test Answers

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Evolution Unit Test *Answer Key*
Knowledge
Thinking/Inquiry
/30
Application
/15
Communication
/10
Multiple Choice
Knowledge
For all Multiple Choice questions, select the best possible answer.
1. Which is not an example of a vestigial feature?
a. Eyes on an Amblyopsidae, a fish that lives entirely in the dark
b. A fifth toe on a dog
c. An appendix on a human
d. The ‘goosebumps’ response on a hairless human
e. The opposable thumb on a chimpanzee
2. Which of the following is most similar to the idea of Saltationism?
a. Uniformitarianism
b. Darwinism
c. Gradualism
d. Paleontologism
e. Punctuated Equilibrium
3. Which would be an example of a beneficial mutation?
a. A meat-eating wolf grows smaller canine teeth and larger molars.
b. A bacteria evolves a way to ‘pump out’ an antibiotic
c. A snowshoe (arctic) hare being born with dark hairs.
d. A girl born with albinism in an African tribe in a very sunny region
4. A flower species mutates and evolves into two varieties, one which is very tall, one which is
very short. What sort of selection might occur to the goats that eat it?
a. Directional Selection
b. Stabilizing Selection
c. Splitting Selection
d. Disruptive Selection
e. Artificial Selection
5. Which would not be a selective pressure?
a. The need for a hawk to see with high acuity (clarity)
b. The need for a human to be able to walk on two feet to run quickly
c. The need for frogs to develop a poison gland to avoid being eaten
d. The need for monkeys to learn to use tools to better access food
e. All of the Above are selective pressures
/8
6. Which of the following statements is true
a. Genetic Drift affects large populations more strongly than small populations
b. The bottleneck effect leads to an increase in genetic diversity
c. The founder effect leads to a decrease in genetic diversity
d. Analogous features are derived from similar features in a common ancestor
e. Emigration increases the number of alleles in a population
7. Which is not an assumption of Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium?
a. Random uniom of gametes (random mating)
b. Infinite population size
c. No mutation
d. No Migration
e. All genes are acted on by selection
8. Observe the Cladogram. Which of the statements is NOT true?
a. Species A is most closely related to Species B
b. Species C is related as closely to Species B as it is to Species A
c. Number 1 likely represents a common ancestor of all species
d. Events 4,5,6,7 all likely occurred around the same time
e. Clade 4 is more closely related to Clade 6 than Clade 7
9. Adaptive radiation is:
a. The relatively rapid evolution of a single species into several new species.
b. When a species starts developing new mutations in response to receiving high doses of
radiation.
c. When two species adapt to the same ecological niche.
d. When one species moves into several different environments and adapts to those
environments while remaining not diverging from the rest of the species.
e. When several traits evolve together in different animals
10. Who came up with the theory of evolution?
a. Darwin
b. Lamarck
c. Spencer
d. Einstein
e. Aristotle
f. It cannot be attributed to any single individual
11. What is the driving force or mechanism for natural selection?
a. survival of the fittest
b. mutations
c. adaptation
d. all of the above
e. b) and c) only
12. Directional selection favours ______. Disruptive selection favours _____. Stabilizing selection
favours ______
a. one extreme trait; two extreme traits; no extreme traits
b. no extreme traits; two extreme traits; one extreme trait
c. two extreme traits; no extreme traits; one extreme trait
d. two extreme traits; one extreme trait, no extreme traits
13. If a giraffe constantly cranes its neck year after year to eat the foliage on tall trees, its offspring
will have longer necks. This is thought to be a ___ mechanism of evolution.
a. Darwinian
b. Buffonian
c. Lamarckian
d. Hessian
14. A gray wolf from one pack in Eastern Ontario moves to a black wolf population in Western
Ontario. The gray wolf mates, and has gray wolf offspring. This is an example of:
a. Genetic drift
b. Gene flow
c. Bottleneck effect
d. Butterfly effect
15. Which of the following is an example of genetic variation?
a. Two children have different eye colors.
b. ne person is older than another.
c. One person has a scar, but her friend does not.
d. Todd eats meat, but his brother Rod is a vegetarian.
e. None of the above.
16. Which of the following is an example of environmental variation?
a. Apu is a tongue roller, but his brother Sanjay is not.
b. Homer inherited baldness from his father's side of the family.
c. Marge dies her hair blue.
d. Patti and Selma have hanging ear lobes.
e. Bart is a boy because he has both an X and a Y chromosome.
17. What's the difference between natural selection and sexual selection?
a. Sexual selection occurs during sex.
b. Natural selection is a type of sexual selection.
c. Sexual selection is a type of natural selection.
d. Sexual selection occurs within demes, natural selection does not.
e. None of the above.
18. Why did Darwin take so long to publish On The Origin of Species?
a. Darwin wanted to share his theory as quickly as possible once he returned from his
voyage on the Beagle.
b. It took twenty years for Darwin to develop a theory.
c. Darwin suffered from a number of illnesses.
d. Darwin was concerned about the reaction of others to the implications of his
theory.
e. All of the above.
19. How is extinction represented in a tree diagram?
a. A branch splits.
b. A branch ends.
c. A branch shifts along the X axis.
d. A branch shifts along the Y axis.
e. None of the above.
20. Which of the following is the most fit in an evolutionary sense?
a. A lion who is successful at capturing prey but has no cubs.
b. A lion who has many cubs, eight of which live to adulthood.
c. A lion who overcomes a disease and lives to have three cubs.
d. A lion who cares for his cubs, two of who live to adulthood.
e. A lion who has a harem of many lionesses and one cub.
Written Answers
Knowledge
1. Compare and contrast allopatric and sympatric speciation. (2)
Allopatric = speciation due to separation of populations in different land masses/geographical areas,
sympatric = in same land mass (more common in plants)
2. Compare and contract genetic drift and gene flow. (2)
Gene flow = the movement of alleles from one population to another
Genetic drift = change in frequency of an allele within a population
3. What is the bottleneck effect? Give one example. (2)
When the majority of individuals in a population die off, leaving behind a small sample of alleles.
When the population is re-established, all the individuals come from that some gene pool that
survived. Ex. European bison today all descend from 12 individuals of the early 20th century, due to
over-hunting
4. Identify and describe one pre-zygotic, and one post-zygotic mechanisms of reproductive
isolation. Illustrate using an example for each. (4)
Pre-zygotic = geographic isolation (if two individuals do not meet, they cannot mate)
Post-zygotic = reduced viability (ex. a mule usually cannot reproduce further)
Thinking/Inquiry
5. Herbert Spencer used the phrase “Survival of the Fittest” to describe the process of Natural
Selection. Darwin himself shied away from this term, considering it to be misleading. Why
might it be misleading? (2)
It has been criticized for not actually having any meaning, ie. the fittest are those that survive, and thus
the phrase is really saying “survival of those who survive”! Also, the term fittest is not defined well. It
is often thought to mean strong, but it really means something more like reproductive success.
6. Create a cladogram for the following alien species that your teacher found on a recent trip to
the Golxan Nebula. Be sure to label the different arms of any divergent event. (8)
Alien
Frong
Sklup
Preeep
Chupa
Mnipnip
Gunko
Libble
Characteristics
Fingers Skin type
3
3
4
4
3
4
3
Scaly
Scaly
Slimy
Scaly
Scaly
Slimy
Scaly
Number of
eyes
3
2
2
3
3
3
2
Hands
Tail
Diet
Fingers
Tentacles
Fingers
Tentacles
Tentacles
Fingers
Fingers
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
No
Twerps
Dweebs
Dweebs
Twerps
Dweebs
Dweebs
Dweebs
7.
(5)
The first bird eats small insects so its beak is adapted for reaching into insect colonies and crevasses
by being long and thin. The third finch eats large seeds, and thus it has a large beak to allow breaking
through the shell. This supports theory of evolution because it shows that those birds with the alleles
that better fit their environment will survive. Over time, those traits will become dominant in a region.
Thus, depending on which island the finches were (and those islands’ unique conditions), the finches
took a different course of evolution.
Application
8. You likely got one Measles Mumps Rubella (MMR) vaccination as a young child and one
Hepatitis shot (well two, but one was a booster) in Grade 7. Why then, must you get a new Flu
shot every year? (2)
Influenza virus evolves very rapidly, and generates new strains every year. The vaccine is only
effective for that year’s particular strain.
9. You are a strawberry farmer. How might you use selective breeding to increase crop yield and
produce fruit of better quality? (3)
Cross the plants that exhibited the best traits in the previous year.
Plant the resultant seeds, and from those new plants, again choose the best, then repeat
Use the seeds of the hardiest plants, and those that were most resistant to pests
10. Comic book superheroes often attain supernatural abilities through mutations. For example,
Spider-man was bitten by a genetically-modified arachnid, and the Hulk was blasted by very
powerful gamma radiation. Is this type of scenario feasible in real life? What is more likely to
happen if a person was blasted with gamma radiation? In which stage of life would a mutation
most likely have to occur in order to produce an effect on the entire body? (5)
This is very unlikely in real life. A bite in the finger might only change the DNA in the finger – but not
the entire body! A mutation would have to occur in the single-cell stage of the zygote so that the DNA
modification applies to the whole body as the zygote replicates. Getting blasted with gamma radiation
will probably cause death, or at the very least, cancer.
Communication
11. Use the table of alien species in question 6 to write a story describing the evolution of these
aliens from one common ancestor. What may have caused divergence of species? How may
some of these adaptations be beneficial? (5)
Answers will vary greatly. Divergence can be caused by a bottleneck, allopatric or sympatric
speciation, the founder effect, etc. Four fingers might be more advantageous to three fingers – perhaps
it helps in catching prey, or fashioning tools.
12. How might selective breeding of plants and animals alter the course of natural selection? (3)
One example is the domesticated dog. Due to selective breeding, we now have tiny chihuahas and
gigantic great danes. These two dogs, though of the same species, can no longer mate viably. This
means they are beginning to diverge! So, the course of natural selection is being altered due to human
selective breeding.