Download Evolution Take

Evolution
Take-Home Exam
Name:______________________________
Class#:_____________________________
Due Tuesday, January 16th
Please respond in writing to any five of the following eight questions. Please do not try to
answer on this page but attach your own. Each answer should be ½ to 1 page in
length. If you are not using this much space, you might be missing some of the important
points, so please write in complete sentences and use the space provided. Please only answer
four—no extra credit will be awarded for extra responses. Each response is worth 10 points and
you can earn up to five extra credit points for neat handwriting and good spelling.
1. When we worked with the Evobot Legos we did an activity where we started with all the cars
designed exactly the same. When we held the race, climbing, and hills competitions, the cars
looked different from one another. How is this like the natural world? How does this result in
new species in the natural world?
Word Hints: evolution, adaptation, natural selection, niche partitioning
2.
There are many different species alive today on earth. According to evolution, all living
things evolved from one common ancestor millions of years ago. Explain how all life evolved
from a single-cell organism.
Word Hints: evolution, natural selection, mutation, adaptation, survival of the fittest
3. Explain how fossils give evidence for evolution by natural selection.
Word Hints: fossils, law of superposition, evolution, missing link, archaeopteryx
4. Explain how vestigial organs and similarities in DNA give evidence for evolution by natural
selection. Give at least two examples of vestigial organs, how they likely evolved and what is
likely to happen to them in the future.
Word Hints: adaptation, environment, mutation, natural selection
5. Our adult axolotl salamanders bred and produced around 500 eggs. Some of the eggs never
hatched. Other offspring have died since hatching and now our population is down around
130 baby salamanders. In the natural world, even fewer would survive. How is this large
number of dying offspring important to evolution?
Word Hints: adaptation, competition, struggle for existence, Malthus
6. Describe how both ideas in geology and biology gave Darwin the evidence to come up with
the theory of evolution by natural selection. Use at least two discoveries from biology and
two from geology that support his idea.
Word Hints: law of superposition, cells, fossils, struggle for existence, homology, age of the
earth
7. Hawaii is an island system much like the Galapagos where many of the species that live there
have evolved in the absence of predators on land. Many birds nest on the ground and show
no fear of others. As Europeans settled the islands they brought with them many cats and
dogs as pets. Some of these pet-predators have gotten loose and now roam the islands. How
do you think this affects the species on the island? What would need to happen for a species
to survive?
Word Hints: natural selection, adaptation, extinction, evolution
8. Breeding of animals like dogs and horses is both similar to and different from evolution by
natural selection. Compare and contrast breeding and evolution.
Word Hints: heritable variation, mutation, natural selection, breeding