111 Questions to Ask Your Biology Students

Wells’s has his pathetic 10 Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher, and I wanted to post some of the questions we asked our biology students this semester. Since I’m in the middle of grading 170+ final exams right now, I am going to post the review questions for the exam. These questions cover the second half of the course, Evolutionary Biology (Gene/Biol 3000).

How many of you know the answers? How many of you even know what is being asked? How many of you think that Wells would have no clue?

• What is the difference between cladogenesis and anagenesis?
• What is the phylogenetic species concept?
• How do the biological species and phylogenetic species concepts differ?
• Give an example of a premating isolating barrier and explain how it works.
• Give an example of a postmating isolating barrier and explain how it works.
• What do measurements of genetic identity (and distance) tell us about the speciation process?
• Define sympatric taxa and give an example.
• Define allopatric taxa and give an example.
• What is known about genes affecting reproductive isolation?
• What is epistasis and why is it important to reproductive isolation?
• Give an example of postzygotic reproductive isolation caused by chromosomal differences.
• How is mating choice measured in Drosophila fruit flies?
• How are Drosophila fruit flies collected in nature?
• Why is reproductive isolation so important in speciation?
• What is allopatric speciation by vicariance? Be sure to include in your answer an explanation of vicariance.
• How does peripatric speciation differ from allopatric speciation by vicariance?
• What is the distinction between selection OF and selection FOR?
• What are two major mechanisms can lead to reproductive isolation?
• What are the Dobzhansky-Muller incompatibilities that may cause hybrid sterility?
• How is reproductive isolation reinforced?
• How did experiments in my own laboratory bring about selection for stronger reproductive isolation?
• What is parapatric speciation?
• Why is sympatric speciation thought to be rare?
• How does speciation by polyploidy occur?
• What is the difference between autopolyploidy and allopolyploidy?
• What is the basic idea of a “web of life” instead of the classical “tree of life”?
• Give an example of each of the two mechanisms that bring about gene exchange between two species.
• What are the three major domains (or empires) of the current phylogenetic tree of life? Include an example of a species in each of the three.
• List 7 major levels of classification in taxonomy.
• Name 5 levels of taxonomic classification for humans.
• Why are synapamorphies important in building phylogenies?
• What is homoplasy?
• Give an example of homoplasy.
• What is the central feature of the method that Hennig proposed for building phylogenies?
• Name 2 methods for inferring phylogenetic relationships.
• How is the molecular clock used to estimate actual dates of divergence in phylogenies?
• What is the difference between a gene tree and a species tree?
• Do gene trees and species trees always agree? Why?
• What is a polytony?
• What are paraphyletic taxa? What did Hennig say about them?
• List at least 3 kinds of evidence for evolution that come from systematics.
• What is convergent evolution? Give an example.
• What is meant by mosaic evolution?
• What is adaptive radiation? Give an example.
• What is Wegener’s Theory of Plate Tectonics?
• What is the basic of concept of radiometric dating?
• In what era did dinosaurs arise and diversify? When did this era start?
• Name the era, period, and epoch in which Homo sapiens evolved.
• Give 3 reasons why the fossil record is often incomplete.
• Name a missing link and explain which groups it links.
• Explain the concept of punctuated equilibria.
• What are 2 lines of evidence that there is a single common ancestor of life?
• How old is the first evidence of life?
• Our domain of life carries descendants of organisms from another domain of life. Name these descendants and the domain from which they originated.
• In which era and period did most modern phyla appear in the fossil record?
• When was the K/T extinction, and what is thought to have caused it?
• Explain the terms adaptation and exaptation and illustrate them with examples from the evolution of tetrapods from fish.
• In “At the Water’s Edge”, Zimmer talks about homeotic genes and how they might be involved in morphological evolution. Give a brief account of how this might occur.
• What is biogeography?
• What is convergent evolution? Examples?
• What did Darwin say about biogeography?
• Who was Wallace and how did he divide the earth into biogeographic realms?
• What role does vicariance play in speciation and in biogeography?
• What role do phylogenetic methods play in biogeography? Examples?
• What do the terms allochthonous and autochtonous mean, and how are they used in biogeography? Examples?
• What is phylogeography? Example.
• What was the most significant element missing from Darwin’s theory of evolution? Who introduced it later?
• How do microevolution and macroevolution differ?
• What is the major difference between exponential and logistic models of population growth?
• What do the statistical techniques of regression and correlation measure?
• What is the “Red Queen” Hypothesis?
• When did mass extinctions occur?
• What are the major causes of extinction?
• What are the 3 “Tiers of Evolutionary Change” proposed by Gould? Give evidence for them.
• What are the basic components of a “life table”?
• How is fitness related to natural selection?
• What does r, the Malthusian parameter of demography, define?
• In a population growing in size, which counts most, reproduction early in life or reproduction later in life? Why?
• In a population with stable population size, which counts most, reproduction early in life, reproduction later in life, or neither? Why?
• Is there any advantage to life beyond reproductive age in humans? Explain.
• What is the concept of tradeoffs among fitness components?
• What is Lack’s concept of optimal clutch size in birds?
• What is “net reproduction” in a demographic model? How is related to fitness?
• What are r and K selection?
• Explain why figs and wasps are used as an example of coevolution.
• How do commensals differ from competitors?
• What are “brood-parasite” birds? Example?
• How can you explain the fact that bill sizes (bill depth) in G. fuliginosa and G. fortis are more different when the two species share a habitat than when they live alone?
• How have rabbits and myxoma virus coevolved in Australia?
• How does Batesian mimicry differ from Mullerian mimicry?
• Which contributors to the “Modern Synthesis” of evolutionary theory wrote principally about macroevolution?
• What are some reasons that living fossils might remain relatively unchanged morphologically for very long periods of time?
• What is relaxed selection? What evidence is there for it?
• What are three key events in human evolution?
• What does the term “Hominin” refer to?
• Where are human fossils are most commonly found?
• Which molecular marker is best used to trace male dispersal, and why?
• Which molecular marker is best used to trace female dispersal, and why?
• What is the concept of coalescence?
• On the basis of genetic data, when did humans move into South America?
• What is the difference between the “multiregional” and “replacement” hypotheses for the origin of modern humans?
• How have these hypotheses been tested? Which is favored?
• What evidence did the Grants and their colleagues obtain about natural selection on Darwin’s finches?
• What role did the Grants find for hybridization in Darwin’s finches?
• Give 2 lines of evidence showing that humans are still evolving.
• What is the evidence that humans are evolving by genetic drift?
• What kind of selection is still operating on humans? Examples?
• What is eugenics, and why are many biologists concerned about it?
• What is molecular evidence for evolution of eyes in flies and mice? What bearing does it have on the general thinking about the evolution of complex structures?
• What have homeobox genes told biologists about developmental aspects of evolution?
• What is co-option and how does it figure in our understanding of molecular-developmental aspects of evolution?