Chapter 13 Study Guide – Flashcards
Unlock all answers in this set
Unlock answersquestion
The Galápagos Islands are cooled by the _____.
answer
Humboldt Current
question
How many finch species did Darwin send to the British Museum?
answer
13
question
How are adaptations beneficial to organisms?
answer
Adaptations help organisms survive and reproduce in a particular environment.
question
Why was Darwin's acceptance of an ancient, continuously changing Earth so important in his development of his ideas about evolution?
answer
Darwin hypothesized that species changed gradually, over long spans of time, in response to diverse and changing habitats.
question
Darwin found that many of the species on the Galápagos islands
answer
resembled species on the nearest mainland.
question
Lyell's book Principles of Geology, which Darwin read on board the H.M.S. Beagle, argued in favor of which of the following concepts?
answer
Earth's surface is shaped by natural forces that act gradually and are still acting.
question
Which of the following is a true statement about Charles Darwin?
answer
He proposed natural selection as the mechanism of evolution
question
Which statement reflects a possible weakness of the fossil record?
answer
Many species probably did not die in the right place at the right time to be captured in fossils, and many fossils will never by found by paleontologists.
question
Which of the following would prevent an organism from becoming part of the fossil record when it dies?
answer
It is fully decomposed by bacteria and fungi.
question
Which of the following statements regarding natural selection is false?
answer
natural selection starts with the creation of new alleles that are directed toward improving an organisms fitness
question
Which of the following is true of homologous structures?
answer
They are structurally similar due to inheritance from a common ancestor.
question
Humans share several features with salamanders. Certain genes and proteins are nearly identical between the two species; both species have four limbs with a similar skeletal structure; the species' early embryos are very similar; and where the salamander has a functional tail, humans have a vestigial tailbone. In evolutionary terms, these are examples of
answer
homology.
question
Which option best describes the concept of an evolutionary tree diagram?
answer
Evolutionary trees relate species to each other by ancestry. An ancestor common to all of the species is placed at the root of the tree. Branch points are defined by homologous features that are shared by the descendant species along a particular branch.
question
Which of the following statements would Darwin have disagreed with?
answer
Descent with modification occurs through inheritance of acquired characteristics.
question
Broccoli, cabbages, and Brussels sprouts all descend from the same wild mustard and can still interbreed. These varieties were produced by
answer
artificial selection.
question
Which of the following best expresses the concept of natural selection?
answer
differential reproductive success based on inherited characteristics
question
Which of the following thinkers argued that much of human suffering was the result of human populations increasing faster than food supply, an argument that later influenced Charles Darwin's ideas of natural selection?
answer
Thomas Malthus
question
A dog breeder wishes to develop a breed that does not bark. She starts with a diverse mixture of dogs. Generation after generation, she allows only the quietest dogs to breed. After 30 years of work she has a new breed of dog with interesting traits, but on average, the dogs still bark at about the same rate as other dog breeds. Which of the following would be a logical explanation for her failure?
answer
The tendency to bark is not a heritable trait
question
Experiments and observations indicate that natural selection acts _____.
answer
fairly quickly in some circumstances (within a few generations), and often temporarily in response to changes in the immediate environment
question
This unequal reproduction in a population leads to the gradual accumulation of ______ to the environment
answer
adaptions
question
Darwin inferred that those organisms with traits best suited to the environment tend to leave more ______ than other members of a population
answer
offspring
question
Two key observations underlying natural selection are that members of a population vary in their _________ and that all species can produce more offspring than the environment can support.
answer
inherited traits
question
Darwin proposed a mechanism for how evolution occurs, which he called
answer
Natural selection
question
The phrase Darwin used to describe his broad theory of evolution is ''descent with
answer
modification
question
All of life is related through common ancestry, accounting for the _______ of life
answer
unity
question
The _____ of life arises from the adaptation of species to different habitats over long spans of time.
answer
diversity
