WorksheetsDarwinian Evolution
Total questions: 35
Worksheet time: 23mins
During his voyage on the Beagle, Charles Darwin made many observations
in England.
in North America.
on the Galápagos Islands.
in Asia.
In 1859, Charles Darwin published his revolutionary scientific ideas in a work titled
Principles of Geology.
Essay on the Principle of Population.
Evolution in Malaysia.
On the Origin of Species.
Which of the following statements would Darwin have disagreed with?
Species change over time.
Living species have arisen from earlier life-forms.
Descent with modification occurs through inheritance of acquired characteristics.
Descent with modification occurs by natural selection.
During the 1950s, a scientist named Lysenko tried to solve the food shortages in the Soviet Union by breeding wheat that could grow in Siberia. He theorized that if individual wheat plants were exposed to cold, they would develop additional cold tolerance and pass it to their offspring. Based on the ideas of artificial and natural selection, do you think this project worked as planned?
Yes; the wheat probably evolved better cold tolerance over time through inheritance of acquired characteristics.
No, because Lysenko took his wheat seeds straight to Siberia instead of exposing them incrementally to cold.
No, because there was no process of selection based on inherited traits. Lysenko assumed that exposure could induce a plant to develop additional cold tolerance and that this tolerance would be passed to the plant's offspring.
Yes, because this is generally the method used by plant breeders to develop new crops.
Broccoli, cabbages, and Brussels sprouts all descend from the same wild mustard and can still interbreed. These varieties were produced by
artificial selection.
natural selection.
genetic drift.
inheritance of acquired characteristics.
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?
There is no variation for the trait (barking).
The tendency to bark is not a heritable trait.
The selection was artificial, not natural, so it did not produce evolutionary change.
There was no selection (differential reproductive success) related to barking behavior.
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
geographic similarity
homology.
adaptation by natural selection.
coincidental similarity.
Which of the following represents a pair of homologous structures?
the wing of a bat and the scales of a fish
the wing of a bat and the flipper of a whale
the antennae of an insect and the eyes of a bird
the wing of a bat and the wing of a butterfly
Which of the following statements best describes the true nature of natural selection?
Only the strongest survive.
The strong eliminate the weak in the race for survival.
Organisms change by random chance.
Heritable traits that promote reproduction become more frequent in a population from one generation to the next.
A woman struggling with a bacterial illness is prescribed a month's supply of a potent antibiotic. She takes the antibiotic for about two weeks and feels much better. Should she save the remaining two-week supply, or should she continue taking the drug?
She should save the drug for later, because if she keeps taking it the bacteria will evolve resistance.
She should save the drug for use the next time the illness strikes.
She should save the drug because antibiotics are in short supply and she may need it to defend herself against a bioterrorism incident.
She should continue taking the drug until her immune system can completely eliminate the infection. Otherwise, some bacteria may remain in her system, and they will probably be resistant.
If you were just diagnosed with a serious bacterial disease, which of these would predict the most positive outcome for treatment? The disease was acquired
in a hospital, where most of the bacteria are probably already weakened by antibiotics in the environment.
in a livestock barn where the animals have been treated with antibiotics.
in a big city where antibiotics are routinely prescribed by doctors.
in a remote, sparsely populated area where the bacteria have not been exposed to antibiotic drugs.
The sickle-cell allele produces a serious blood disease in homozygotes. Why doesn't natural selection eliminate this allele from all human populations?
Natural selection is a positive force, so it does not eliminate alleles.
In populations where endemic malaria is present, heterozygotes have an important advantage: They are resistant to malaria and therefore are more likely to survive and produce offspring that carry the allele.
Mutations keep bringing the allele back into circulation.
Natural selection occurs very slowly, but elimination of the sickle-cell allele is expected to occur soon.
Mothers and teachers often say they need another pair of eyes on the backs of their heads. And another pair of hands would come in handy in many situations. You can imagine that these traits would have been advantageous to our early hunter-gatherer ancestors as well. According to sound evolutionary reasoning, what is the most likely explanation for why humans do not have these traits?
Because they actually would not be beneficial to the fitness of individuals who possessed them. Natural selection always produces the most beneficial traits for a particular organism in a particular environment.
Because every time they have arisen before, the individual mutants bearing these traits have been killed by chance events. Chance and natural selection interact.
Because these variations have probably never appeared in a healthy human. As tetrapods, we are pretty much stuck with a four-limbed, two-eyed body plan; natural selection can only edit existing variations.
Because humans are a relatively young species. If we stick around and adapt for long enough, it is inevitable that the required adaptations will arise.
A group of dog breeders is trying to design and develop an ideal dog. They want a dog with a gentle disposition, black fur, long ears, short legs, and a strong sense of smell. Which of the following comments from fellow dog breeders represents the biggest challenge they are likely to face?
There are breeds with long ears and breeds with short leg, but no breeds with both.
There does not seem to be any genetic variation in sense of smell.
Artificial selection is artificial and cannot change the genetics of a breed like natural selection
Most dogs with black fur have long legs.
Some butterflies can ingest toxic chemicals from the milkweed plants they feed on and then can store those chemicals in their body. Because toxins stored in the butterflies are toxic to birds, the birds avoid eating the butterflies. Which of the following is the best explanation for this situation?
Butterflies that stored the chemicals were never eaten by predators, so those butterflies survived.
Butterflies developed a mutation that led them to be able to store the chemical because they needed to avoid being eaten.
Milkweed plants wanted the butterflies to ingest the chemical so they would no longer feed on the plant, but the butterflies fooled the milkweed by storing the toxic chemicals.
Any butterfly allele that allowed milkweed toxin storage would be likely to persist because butterflies that had it were more likely to survive.
A news article discussing the evolution of domestic dogs from wolves included this statement: "On its way from pack-hunting carnivore to fireside companion, dogs learned to love—or at least live on—wheat, rice, barley, corn, and potatoes." What is a more scientifically accurate way to state what happened with dogs?
Dogs mutated to be able to eat wheat, rice, barley, corn, and potatoes.
Some wolves may have had variants in their digestion that allowed them to eat wheat, rice, barley, corn, and potatoes and so were able to survive with humans.
Being around humans represented an advantage, so wolves were able to take advantage of that by changing their digestion to be able to eat wheat, rice, barley, corn, and potatoes.
Dogs were created at the same time as wolves.
According to Darwin’s theory of natural selection, individuals who survive are the ones best adapted for their environment. Their survival is due to the
possession of adaptations developed through use.
possession of inherited adaptations that maximize fitness.
lack of competition within the species.
choices made by plant and animal breeders.
When lions prey on a herd of antelopes, some antelopes are killed and some escape. Which part of Darwin’s concept of natural selection might be used to describe this situation?
acquired characteristics
reproductive isolation
survival of the fittest
descent with modification
Charles Darwin called the ability of an organism to survive and reproduce in its specific environment
diversity.
fitness.
adaptation.
evolution.
In humans, the pelvis and femur, or thigh bone, are involved in walking. In whales, the pelvis and femur shown in Figure 15–1 are
examples of fossils.
vestigial structures.
acquired traits.
examples of natural variation.
Darwin’s concept of evolution was NOT influenced by
the work of Charles Lyell.
knowledge about the structure of DNA.
his collection of specimens.
his trip on the H.M.S. Beagle.
Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution explains all of the following EXCEPT
how species become extinct.
how inherited traits are passed from parent to offspring.
how species change over time.
how evolution takes place in the natural world.
Darwin’s theory of evolution suggests that
species change over time.
extinct species are not related to living species.
different species can interbreed.
animals that look alike are the most closely related.
