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Unit 5 Evolution
Examine the development of the theory of evolution by natural
selection and assess the adaptations affecting survival and reproductive success.
Just as you would use a map to guide you to a destination,
use these sentences to guide you in your study of this
unit.
1. Define attached vocabulary words.
2. What did Darwins’ travels reveal to him about the number and variety of living
species?
3. How did tortoises and birds differ among the islands of the Galapagos?
4. What two ideas from geology were important to Darwins’ thinking?
5. According to Lamarck, how did organisms acquire traits?
6. According to Malthus, what factors limited population growth?
7. How is artificial selection dependent on variation in nature?
8. The theory of evolution by natural selection explains, in scientific terms, how
living things evolve over time. What is being selected in this process?
9. In genetic terms, what indicates that evolution is occurring in a population?
10. What two processes can lead to inherited variation in populations?
11. How does the range of phenotypes differ between single-gene traits and polygenic
traits?
12. Describe how natural selection can affect traits controlled by single genes.
13. Describe three patterns of natural selection on polygenic traits. Which one leads
to two distinct phenotypes?
14. How does genetic drift lead to a change in a populations’ gene pool?
15. How is reproductive isolation related to the formation of new species?
16. What type of isolating mechanism was important in the formation of Galapagos
finch species?
17. What can be learned from the fossil record?
18. Which type of dating provides an absolute age for a given fossil? Describe how
this is done.
19. How are eras and periods related?
20. What substances probably made up Earth’s early atmosphere?
21. What molecules were the end products in Miller and Urey’s experiments?
22. How did the addition of oxygen to Earth’s atmosphere affect life of that time?
23. Where did life exist during the early Paleozoic Era?
24. What evolutionary milestone involving animals occurred during the Devonian
Period?
25. What are two key events from the Mesozoic Era?
26. What is macroevolution? Describe two patterns of macroevolution.
27. How are living things organized for study?
28. Describe the system for naming species that Linnaeus developed.
29. What are the seven taxonomic categories of Linnaeus’s classification system?
Rank these taxa in hierarchical order, beginning with the largest level and ending
with the smallest.
30. How is information about evolutionary, or phylogenetic, relationships useful in
classification?
31. How are genes used to help scientists classify organisms?
32. What are the six kingdoms of life as they are now identified?
33. What are the three domains of life?