Questions about evidence for evolution:
a) Is survival of the fittest the only cause of evolutionary change? (Did Darwin himself even think it was?) *b) Did Darwin propose the phrase "survival of the fittest"? c) What are two other causes of evolution? (that really occur) d) In sexual selection, members of which sex do most of the choosing? e) And what are some ways that the anatomy of the other sex gets changed as a result of this form of evolution? f) Can small populations cause faster changes in gene frequencies? g) Can you explain this phenomenon? Why does it occur? h) What is meant by a hybrid? (offspring of cross between 2 species; or two subspecies; or sometimes used to refer to offspring of cross between genotypes) i) Are hybrids sometimes stronger or bigger than their parents? (yes) j) For speciation to occur, how should the fertility of hybrids differ from the fertility of their parents? k) What effect would it have on speciation if hybrids were more fertile, or otherwise left more offspring? l) If hybrids are less fertile, will evolution favor genes for instincts that reduce mating with members of the other kind? m) What is the surprising result of crossing the species of tropical fish called "Platys" with those called "Swordtails". n) Would you expect that such hybrids would occur in the wild? o) The number of different species of animals and plants varies with geography according to what general rules, if any. *p) For how long have the mechanisms of speciation been well understood and agreed upon by scientists who specialize in it? q) What is the distinction between "prezygotic" as opposed to "postzygotic" categories of mechanisms for minimizing interbreeding and gene transfer between potential species?
Questions about evolutionary history:
a) About how many million years ago did the Cambrian period begin? b) If you categorized fossils into 4 different kinds, according the mechanism of their formation, what would the categories be? *c) The youngest (most recent) fossils would be expected to fall into which of these categories? And explain your reasoning. *d) Into which of the 4 categories would the oldest fossils probably belong? Why? e) Has the earth's atmosphere always been pretty much the same as it is now? (no) Was it like it is now when life first evolved? Where did all the additional oxygen gas come from? f) For about how long as the atmosphere had as much oxygen as it does now? g) What is now believed to have killed off all the dinosaurs? h) Were the dinosaurs the only major group of animals that died off at that time? i) Have there been any other mass extinctions, comparable (or even larger) that the one that occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period? * About how many? (5, altogether, at least) **j) Would you guess that any asteroids hit the earth before the Cambrian? Why might we not know about mass extinctions that had occurred earlier than that? k) About how old is the earth itself believed to be? l) Life is believed to have evolved about how long after the formation of the earth? m) For about how long were all life forms still unicellular? n) About how long ago are multicellular animals and plants believed to have evolved? o) What is meant by the Cambrian radiation? p) Did evolution of new life forms have anything to do with deposition or iron ore beds? *q) Science fiction sometimes includes the idea of "terraforming" planets: which means changing their atmosphere and other features to make them habitable by humans. In what sense did evolution terraform the earth itself? **r) Which is your favorite kind of dinosaur?
Questions about viruses:
a) Is the genetic material in viruses DNA, or RNA? b) Is this nucleic acid double stranded or single stranded? c) Do some viruses cause diseases? d) Do viruses infect only animal cells? e) Or plant cells? f) Or bacterial cells? **g) Can you imagine how bacterial viruses might possibly be used to treat human diseases? h) What are at least two specific examples of human diseases that are caused by certain kinds of viruses? i) Can a virus that normally infects one kind of organism ever switch to some new species, and infect it also? j) What two alternatives are considered to be the evolutionary origin(s) of viruses? k) Could both be true? l) Describe the structure and shapes of viruses. m) What is reverse transcriptase?
Questions about protists:
a) Are the protists a natural group, in the sense of being monophyletic, and having a common evolutionary origin? (no) b) What are some of the kinds of organisms that are classified as protists? c) What are three major groups of eucaryotes that are not included among the protists? Is this because their evolutionary origin is different from the protists? *d) It used to be supposed that the one-celled "plant" called Euglena was similar to the common evolutionary ancestors or both plants and animals. What is now believed about their evolution? e) In what sense are Euglena partly plants and partly animals, after all?! f) Why does the textbook say that the word "protist" may soon be abandoned? Will some new word replace it, with a synonymous meaning? Why not? g) Why was it somewhat misguided to think about protozoa as just one-celled equivalents of animals? h) Is it closer to the truth to regard green algae as simpler relatives to higher plants? (hint: yes) i) What about Red Algae and Brown Algae: are they closely related to Green Algae, or what? (hint: no) j) Because of what weird nasty protist with 2 nuclei will you get sick if you drink water from an appalachian spring? k) What else is weird about the cell structure of these organisms? l) What sort of organism causes malaria? How are they spread? *m) The name "malaria" comes from what mistaken belief about the causes of diseases spread by mosquitoes? Until about when did medical science still believe this false theory? (1900) n) How big can Paramecia and other ciliates become, more or less? o) How can ciliates be so much bigger than the individual cells of humans and other multicellular animals (and plants)? p) The shape of diatoms is caused by the shape of what part of them? q) Is there more than one form of "amoeboid locomotion"? (hint: doggone right, there are!) *r) Can you describe some of the different types of amoeboid locomotion that you saw in my time-lapse videos? s) What did Thomas Kuhn mean by paradigm science? As contrasted with what other category of scientific progress? **t) Can you suggest some areas of science that are ripe for scientific revolutions, in Kuhn's sense? u) What philosopher of science wrote "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions".
*v) Kuhn wrote that the biggest new discoveries are usually made by researchers who are either quite young (in their 20s) or who are switching from one field to another field? (like many of the first molecular geneticists were switching into Biology from Physics!) Can you guess why this is true? **w) Do you think maybe the word "paradigm" is getting a little over-used in science, politics, newspapers, The Simpsons, etc. *x) Was it paradigm science to show that mosquitoes cause malaria? **y) Which was the weirdest kind of organism you have heard of? **z) In Star Trek, why do all the different intelligent life forms differ mostly in the shapes of their foreheads? Compare this to the magnitudes of the differences among "Protists"!
Questions about plants and their evolution:
a) Are plants diploid of haploid? (or sometimes...?) What are some examples of each?
b) The gametophyte generation looks like what? In moss? In ferns? c) The gametophyte generation has what ploidy? d) Do any plants have swimming sperm? (hint; yes, but which ones)
e) What do seed plants have instead of sperm? f) What structures were the three most important evolutionary advances in higher plants? *g) Which kinds of plants have some but not others of these 3? Which have none of the 3? which have one of the 3? which 2? h) Were there ferns and moss in the Cambrian? (not quite yet) i) Which evolved first? And from what? j) What is the origin of coal? k) Did the plants that became coal live before or after the age of dinosaurs? *m) Invent a science fiction, parallel earth equivalent to humans, that has an alternating of generations between gametophyte and spermatophyte generations? n) What is the function of flowers? o) If a given species of angiosperm is normally fertilized by flies, what would you expect its flowers to smell like? **p) Imagining that fertilization by Austrian Monks became a significant symbiotic relationship for pea plants, why might genetic linkage tend to be reduced, along with co-dominance, multiple alleles affecting the same characters, etc. *q) Some plants have mechanisms to prevent self-pollination: can you figure out (invent) several such mechanisms? *r) Other plants ARE capable of self-fertilization, and it is found that islands far out in the ocean (like Hawaii) have much higher percentage of plants that are capable of self-fertilization; can you figure out what probably caused this? *s) By what mechanism are Gymnosperms pollinated? **t) Do you know any kinds of plants which have separate male and female individuals? Is such a thing possible? u) Evolutionarily and taxonomically, what group do Ginkgo trees belong to? v) Monocots and dicots belong to what larger taxonomic group? w) Corn, grass, etc. belong to what group? x) Lycopodium ("Ground pine") is most closely related to which other kinds of plants? y) Which group of plants were the first to evolve vessels to transport water? z) Which group seems to have evolved seeds first?
Questions about fungi:
a) Networks of hyphae are called _______(what?). b) Mushrooms (and the equivalent "bracket fungi" that stick out of the sides of trees and logs) have what relationship to mycelia? c) Why are mushrooms sometimes distributed as rings 10, 20 or 50 feet or so in diameter? (diameter of the rings, not the individual mushrooms, of course!) d) What is the name of a group of fungi in which two kinds of gametes are produced, both of which swim by means of flagella (kind of like sperm), and fuse together to form a diploid phase of their cell cycle? e) Members of this group of fungi cause serious infectious diseases in what class of vertebrates? f) How does mating occur in the zygomycota? g) If meiosis in a fungus produces spores in an elongate sack, usually with 8 spores, each such sack is called and ______, and that species of fungus is classified as belonging to the _______-mycetes? h) Mushrooms serve what function? i) Most mushrooms are produced by members of which of the sub-groups of the fungi? j) What are yeasts? *k) Members of the Deuteromycetes (that used to be called "Fungi Imperfecti") differ in what way from Basidiomycetes and Ascomycetes? l) What is meant by mutualism, including another term for the same category of phenomenon? m) Lichens consist of a combination of cells of some species of algae growing among cells of what? n) Are the algae of lichens eucaryotic algae, or procaryote (blue-green) algae? (trick question) o) Do Brown Algae participate in the formation of any kinds of lichens? (hint: yes, but only rarely) p) Besides lichens, what is another important kind symbiotic relationship between some fungi and many (or most?!) species of seed plants? q) Do some species of fungi cause diseases in flowering plants? (hint: did you ever hear of the Potato Blight, that caused so many to starve to death in Ireland in the 1840s) r) Are there any human diseases caused by fungi? Are there some such diseases caused by fungi that grow as mycelia? And others that grow in the morphology of yeast? (hint: yes) *s) Can you figure out why there are fewer good antibiotics for treating fungal diseases than there are for treating bacterial diseases? [NOTE: This is a conceptual question, relating to how antibiotics work, and also to evolutionary relationships of people to fungi and bacteria.] t) Suppose that somebody developed a chemical that would kill all fungi, but not directly harm either angiosperms or gymnosperms: would it be a good idea to spray this chemical on fields and forests, to protect plants from fungal diseases. (hint: why not?) *u) Although a few kinds of edible mushrooms can be deliberately grown, as a crop, often in caves or indoors, attempts to grow most species of mushrooms as a crop have (notoriously) failed, despite many attempts, and the prospect of millions of dollars for anyone who could succeed. Suggest at least one possible reason for this, based on what you have learned. *v) What are some differences between arbuscular as compared with ectomycorrhizal fungi. *w) What is meant by "endophytic fungi"?
Questions about animal evolution:
a) The arthropod phylum is one of how many phyla of multicellular animals? b) When did the differences between these different phyla evolve? c) Humans belong to which phylum? (hint: of which the vertebrates are the major subphylum) d) Are sponges thought to be on the main line of evolution to the other, higher phyla of animals? What other phylum is? e) Sponges are believed to have evolved from what other group of animals, based on possession of what strange cell type?
f) What did H.V. Wilson discover about sponge cells? (& when?) g) What was Wilson's misinterpretation of this discovery? h) What (over-simplified) explanation does our textbook and most people believe causes the phenomenon that Wilson discovered? i) What related discoveries about sponges and sponge cells were later made by members of the UNC Biology Department? j) What are some animals that are probably much more similar than sponges to the ancestral multicellular animals? k) The most successful evolutionary branch of the animal kingdom has which phylum at the end of the branch? l) Which two other phyla are believed to be fairly closely related to this phylum, and part of the same branch? m) Besides vertebrates, what other kinds of animals are part of the second-most successful evolutionary branch of multicellular animals? (Please include two different groups) n) What kind of skeleton do insects and other arthropods have? o) In addition to insects, what are some of the other major sub-groups of the arthropods? p) Why do insects and other arthropods have to molt in order to grow? q) What are some similarities, and also some differences, between metamorphosis in flies as compared with metamorphosis in grasshoppers. Which is more like butterflies in this respect? r) What 3 or 4 major evolutionary advances occurred as more advanced vertebrates evolved from the most primitive ones? s) What are extraembryonic membranes? Hint: The developing embryos of which kinds of vertebrates form extraembryonic membranes? Another hint: What is a placenta?
t) Do all fish and reptiles lay eggs? (Hint: Most do, but not all.) u) What species do we humans belong to, and about how long ago did this species evolve? v) What living species of animal is evolutionarily closest to humans? w) Our DNA base sequences differ from this other species by how many percent? x) How does oxygen get to the tissues of ants, flies and grasshoppers?
*y) Have there ever been any other members of the same genus to which humans belong?
z) Did the first vertebrates have jaws? (hint: no) When did vertebrates first evolve jaws? Do any species of vertebrates, now alive, not have jaws? (Which ones?) *!) Are clams evolutionarily more closely related to humans or to ants? What about starfish? Are they more closely related to ants or to humans? **What about barnacles?
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