NAME: KEY

EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY EXAM #1 Fall 2017

There are 3 parts to this exam. Use your time efficiently and be sure to put your name on the
top of each page.

Part I. True (T) or False (F) (2 points each). Circle the correct answer.

1. Reconstructing the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA) is challenging

because horizontal gene transfer appears to have been common among
early life forms. T F

2. Rare alleles have a higher probability of being lost during a population

bottleneck event T F

3. Natural Selection can cause either an increase or a decrease in population

mean fitness. T F

4. Self-replicating proteins are the most likely candidate for the first information
bearing molecule in living systems. T F

5. Selection acts on the genotype not the phenotype T F

6. Homology is similarity in traits due to shared inheritance from a common

ancestor. T F

7. Aristotle was the first scientist to articulate a theory of evolutionary change. T F

8. Under directional selection, the rate of evolutionary change in gene

frequencies occurs most rapidly when heterozygosity is highest. T F

9. Inbreeding causes an increase in the probability that individuals carry

alleles that are identical by descent. T F

10. Mutation accumulation experiments indicate that mutation can rapidly

change allele frequencies in natural populations T F

1
 NAME: KEY

Part II. Multiple Choice (3 points each). Circle the best answer.

11. Which of the following statements regarding the early history of life is TRUE:

a. According to the Oparin-Haldane model the development of a cellular membrane

must have preceded the development of an information-bearing polymeric molecule.
b. The basic chemical building blocks for complex biological molecules must have
originated in outerspace.
c. Ecological systems based on iron sulfide metabolism may have supported the
earliest living systems on earth.
d. A reducing atmosphere during the early history of the earth prevented the evolution of
cellular life forms.

12. Which of the following statements is FALSE?

a. Panspermia is the hypothesis that life has an extraterrestrial origin.

b. Gene duplication can lead to novel function.
c. Natural selection is the same as evolution.
d. The adaptive value of a mutation changes with the ecological circumstances.

13. Which of the following statements is NOT true?

a. Lamarck proposed that organisms arose through spontaneous generation and

evolved toward increasing complexity.
b. The Law of Succession is based on the observation that extant organisms often
resemble recent fossils from the same geographic region.
c. Thomas Malthus developed the mathematical framework to describe exponential
population growth.
d. Fisher argued that mutations with small effects are more likely to be
deleterious than mutations with large effects

14. Which of the following statements about migration and selection is TRUE?

a. Selection can promote population homogeneity, but migration causes population

differentiation.
b. Migration between two populations experiencing different selection regimes
will tend to keep each population from achieving its expected allele frequency
under selection alone.
c. Migration cannot introduce enough new variation to maintain a polymorphism, even
when selection is weak.
d. Selection is impossible in the face of high rates of migration.

15. Darwin’s four theories of evolution include each of the following EXCEPT:

a. Evolution has occurred.

b. Natural selection is the primary cause of evolutionary change.
c. The splitting of lineages into two or more species has occurred.
d. Evolutionary change proceeds rapidly, and is fueled by mutations of major
effect.

2
 NAME: KEY

16. Mutations are necessary for evolution to proceed. Which one of the following statements
about mutation is TRUE?

a. In a stressful environment, mutations occur preferentially in biochemical pathways

that are of adaptive significance.
b. Point mutations are the most common type of mutation and are the most likely type of
mutation to have major effects on fitness.
c. The most likely fate of duplicated genes is that they accumulate point
mutations and become functionless pseudogenes.
d. Exposing Drosophila to x-ray radiation causes an increase in population mean
fitness.

17. Which of the following statements about genetic drift is TRUE?

a. Genetic drift can rapidly homogenize allele frequencies in different populations.

b. If unchecked by other processes, genetic drift will result in a genetically
uniform population.
c. Genetic drift changes only genotype frequencies, not allele frequencies.
d. The effective population size is usually larger than the actual population size.

18. A large value of FST indicates…

a. random genetic drift is stronger than selection

b. a pattern of non-random mating within populations.
c. restricted gene flow between populations.
d. The populations are in migration-selection balance

19. A likely explanation for the maintenance of the sickle-cell gene in Africa is that it confers an
advantage to heterozygotes by increasing their resistance to malaria. Such overdominant
selection results in a stable equilibrium. What do you think the nature of selection on the sickle-
cell gene should be in a place where malaria rarely occurs (like the United States)?

a. There should still be overdominant selection.

b. There should be underdominant selection.
c. There should be directional selection to eliminate the sickle cell gene.
d. There will be no selection at all.

20. Which of the following statements is FALSE?

a. Frequency-dependent selection can maintain genetic variation

b. Inbreeding depression is stronger when deleterious alleles are dominant
c. Evolution occurs in populations not individuals
d. Recombination is a source of genetic variation

3
 NAME: KEY

21. Lamark’s ideas about the process of evolution include each of the following EXCEPT:

a. Acquired characteristics are inherited.

b. Organisms arise by spontaneous generation.
c. Evolutionary relationships among organisms can be depicted by groupings
based on similarity.
d. Organisms develop adaptations to the environment through the use and disuse of
organs.

22. Which of the following is NOT used by scientists as evidence for evolution?

a. The fossil record of organisms living in the past.

b. Experimental tests of the effects of selection.
c. Similarity in functional traits, like the wings of insects and birds.
d. Rapid phenotypic change in natural populations in response to changing
environments.

23. Why do some eyeless cave fish have genes that control eye development?

a. Their ancestors had eyes and they inherited these genes even though they no
longer have eyes.
b. If they return to the surface environment they will need eyes so evolution keeps them
around.
c. Evolution can cause gene gain but not gene loss.
d. None of the above.

24. Which of the following statements is NOT true?

a. The outcome of selection depends on the frequency of an allele and its effects on
fitness.
b. Rare alleles are almost always in the heterozygous state.
c. Selection cannot easily eliminate a dominant deleterious allele because when
the beneficial recessive allele becomes rare it will almost always be in the
heterozygous state.
d. Selection occurs whenever genotypes differ in their relative fitness.

25. Which of the following statements about evolution is/are true?

a. Evolution is change that is heritable across generations.

b. Evolution is a property of populations not individuals.
c. Evolution is a change in gene frequencies through time.
d. All of the above
e. a and c

4
 NAME: KEY

Part III. Short Answer/Problems. Be concise and to the point, short focused answers are
better than long rambling ones. Show your work for partial credit.

21. (3 pts.) Darwin developed his theory of Evolution by Natural Selection over the course of
many years of careful observation and study. List three (3) scientific areas / theories /
observations that contributed to his revelation in the following passage:

“… it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend
to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed.”
September 28, 1838

There are a lot of possibilities for this one including the observations he made on te
effect of selection in domesticated animals, the observation of variation among island
populations in the Galapagos, the emerging understanding of the age of the earth from
the field of geology, the law of succession, Malthus’s work on population growth, etc.

22. (8 pts.) By the early 1940’s the unification of evolutionary biology that we now refer to as the
“Modern Synthesis” had been completed. The unification of the field was facilitated by a large
number of researchers in the fields of genetics, systematics, and paleontology. One of the
major outcomes of the “Modern Synthesis” was a clear description of the evolutionary forces
acting on natural populations. Below, list four (4) forces affecting the evolution of natural
populations. (1 pt each)

1) SELECTION

2) MUTATION

3) RANDOM GENETIC DRIFT

4) MIGRATION

These forces influence the patterns of genetic variation in natural populations. Briefly compare
and contrast the way that each of these forces influences genetic diversity. (1 pt each)

These forces all influence the patterns and amounts of genetic variation in natural
populations in different ways. Mutation increases genetic variation. Random genetic
drift reduces genetic variation. Selection typically reduces variation. However, some
forms of selection can maintain genetic variation. For example, frequency dependent or
overdominant (heterozygote advantage) selection can maintain genetic variation.
Migration can either increase or decrease genetic variation depending on how it
influences gene frequencies. In the extreme case when novel alleles are being
introduces from another population, migration can rapidly change gene frequencies and
increase variation. However, if gene frequencies are changed so that the population is
moved farther from equal frequencies of alleles (p=0.5, q=0.5) migration will tend to
reduce heterozygosity and reduce genetic variation.

5
 NAME: KEY

22. (10 points) List AND briefly explain 3 different mechanisms by which natural selection can
maintain genetic variation in a population. (3 pts each with partial credit for just the name or just
the definition)

1. Overdominance. When there is heterozygote advantage, as long as a population starts

with two alleles (i.e., is not fixed for one or the other allele) both alleles will be maintained
at a stable equilibrium.

2. Fluctuating selection. Temporally or spatially varying selective regimes that favor

different genotypes can preserve genetic variation. The maintenance of variation by this
mechanism requires a fairly narrow set of conditions.

3. Frequency-dependent selection. If the rare genotype has a fitness advantage and the
common genotype a selective disadvantage, then genetic variation will be maintained in
the population.

Provide an example of a real system in nature that demonstrates one of these mechanisms: (1
pt.)

26. (8 points) One of the classic cases in conservation genetics is the elephant seal. This
enormous pinniped was hunted for its fur to near extinction in the late1800’s. At the lowest point
the total population size of the elephant seal may have been as small as a few dozen.

a) One major concern for small populations is the loss of genetic variation due to random
genetic drift. If a population goes through a bottleneck with a population size of 12 individuals
and it initially has a heterozygosity of 0.35;

How much of the initial heterozygosity will be lost after one generation? (4 pts)

H1 = H0(1-1/2Ne)
H1 = (0.35)((1-1/(2(12)))
H1 = 0.335
0.335/0.35 = 0.958

This population retains 95.8% of the initial heterozygosity and has lost 4.2% of the initial
variation in one generation.

If the population size remains the same, how much of the initial heterozygosity will remain after
10 generations? (4 pts)

H10 = H0(1-1/2Ne)10
H10 = (0.35)((1-(1/(2)(12)))10
H10 = 0.229
0.229/0.435 = 0.653

65.3% of the initial heterozygosity will remain after 10 generations

6
 NAME: KEY

28. (6 points) Another concern for any small population is inbreeding that tends to lower mean
fitness.

How does inbreeding lower fitness? (3 pts)

Inbreeding leads to INCREASED HOMOZYGOSITY because of non-random mating among

related individuals. This non-random mating leads to an increase in the probability of
alleles being identical by descent (IBD) and causes a change in the genotype frequencies
in the population. When there are DELETERIOUS RECESSIVE ALLELES segregating in
the population increased homozygosity will lead to greater expression of these
deleterious alleles since their effects will no longer be masked in the heterozygous
condition. The result is a reduction in population mean fitness. If deleterious alleles are
not recessive no reduction in fitness will be observed. This phenomenon is referred to as
INBREEDING DEPRESSION.

An interesting observation is that inbreeding depression is almost universal. Virtually any

population (including humans) that inbreeds will suffer a loss of fitness. What can we learn from
this observation? (3 pts)

A good explanation of the importance of genetic variation to population in changing

environments, or the clear indication that the observation of inbreeding depression
suggests that natural popuatlion (including humans) harbor a large load of slightly
deleterious recessive alleles.

Section 1 /20
Section 2 /30
Section 3 /50

Total /100