NOVA Evolution Lab (Missions 1-4)

What does it mean to be the "fittest" in an evolutionary sense?

• the best able to avoid being eaten

• the longest lived

• the strongest

• the most reproductively successful

Evolution is 

• completely random
• fixed in one direction
• neither entirely fixed nor entirely random

What is the goal of the tree of life:

• to explain how all species are related to each other
• to be a library of all life that has ever lived
• to summarize the fossil record
• to describe how natural selection works

Which way does time run on a phylogenic tree?

• From root to branch tip
• Across branch tips from left to right

A  mushroom is more like 

• A palm tree than a gecko because they are heterotrophs.
• A palm tree than a gecko because they are both photosynthetic autotrophs 
• A gecko than a palm tree because they are both photosynthetic autotrophs
• A gecko than a palm tree because they are both heterotrophs.

An amniote is an animal that

• lays eggs
• developes embryos inside a membrane
• gives live birth
• has eggs with hard shells

Under a microscope, if an organism's cells have visible nuclei, it is considered...

• prokaryotic

• heterotrophic

• eukaryotic

• autotrophic

What is the difference between seaweed and a banana, lemon, onion and radish?

• It is a vegetable
• It has leaves
• It is a photosynthetic autotroph
• It reproduces with spores

Which fossil layer is the oldest?

• E
• D
• B
• A

Fossils provide all of the following EXCEPT?

• Examples of transitional species
• Complete record of Earth's past
• Physical proof of extinction and speciation
• Evidence that evolutionary change is gradual