Descent with Modification: a Darwinian View of Life
Biology, 8e (Campbell)
Chapter 22
Descent with Modification: A Darwinian View of Life
Multiple-Choice Questions
1) Catastrophism, meaning the regular occurrence of geological or meteorological disturbances (catastrophes), was Cuvier's attempt to explain the existence of
A) evolution.
B) the fossil record.
C) uniformitarianism.
D) the origin of new species.
E) natural selection.
Answer: B
Topic: Concept 22.1
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
2) Which of the events described below agrees with the idea of catastrophism?
A) The gradual uplift of the Himalayas by the collision of the Australian crustal plate with the Eurasian crustal plate
B) The formation of the Grand Canyon by the Colorado River over millions of years
C) The gradual deposition of sediments many kilometers thick on the floors of seas and oceans
D) The sudden demise of the dinosaurs, and various other groups, by the impact of a large extraterrestrial body with Earth
E) The development of the Galapagos Islands from underwater seamounts over millions of years
Answer: D
Topic: Concept 22.1
Skill: Application/Analysis
3) What was the prevailing notion prior to the time of Lyell and Darwin?
A) Earth is a few thousand years old, and populations are unchanging.
B) Earth is a few thousand years old, and populations gradually change.
C) Earth is millions of years old, and populations rapidly change.
D) Earth is millions of years old, and populations are unchanging.
E) Earth is millions of years old, and populations gradually change.
Answer: A
Topic: Concept 22.1
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
4) During a study session about evolution, one of your fellow students remarks, "The giraffe stretched its neck while reaching for higher leaves; its offspring inherited longer necks as a result." Which statement is most likely to be helpful in correcting this student's misconception?
A) Characteristics acquired during an organism's life are generally not passed on through genes.
B) Spontaneous mutations can result in the appearance of new traits.
C) Only favorable adaptations have survival value.
D) Disuse of an organ may lead to its eventual disappearance.
E) Overproduction of offspring leads to a struggle for survival.
Answer: A
Topic: Concept 22.1
Skill: Synthesis/Evaluation
5) Which group is composed entirely of individuals who maintained that species are fixed (i.e., unchanging)?
A) Aristotle, Cuvier, and Lamarck
B) Linnaeus, Cuvier, and Lamarck
C) Lyell, Linnaeus, and Lamarck
D) Aristotle, Linnaeus, and Cuvier
E) Hutton, Lyell, and Darwin
Answer: D
Topic: Concept 22.1
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
6) In the mid-1900s, the Soviet geneticist Lysenko believed that his winter wheat plants, exposed to ever-colder temperatures, would eventually give rise to ever more cold-tolerant winter wheat. Lysenko's attempts in this regard were most in agreement with the ideas of
A) Cuvier.
B) Hutton.
C) Lamarck.
D) Darwin.
E) Plato.
Answer: C
Topic: Concept 22.1
Skill: Application/Analysis
The following questions refer to Figure 22.1, which shows an outcrop of sedimentary rock whose strata are labeled A-D.
Figure 22.1
7) Which stratum should contain the greatest proportion of extinct organisms?
Answer: D
Topic: Concept 22.1
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
8) If "x" indicates the location of fossils of two closely related species, then fossils of their most-recent common ancestor are most likely to occur in which stratum?
Answer: C
Topic: Concept 22.1
Skill: Application/Analysis
9) Who would have proposed that the boundaries between each stratum mark the occurrence of different localized floods?
A) Lyell
B) Cuvier
C) Hutton
D) Darwin
E) Lamarck
Answer: B
Topic: Concept 22.1
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
10) Which pair would have been likely to agree that strata such as those depicted here were deposited gradually over long periods of time by subtle mechanisms that are still at work?
A) Cuvier and Aristotle
B) Cuvier and Lamarck
C) Lyell and Linnaeus
D) Aristotle and Hutton
E) Hutton and Lyell
Answer: E
Topic: Concept 22.1
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
11) Darwin's mechanism of natural selection required long time spans in order to modify species. From whom did Darwin get the concept of Earth's ancient age?
A) Georges Cuvier
B) Charles Lyell
C) Alfred Wallace
D) Thomas Malthus
E) John Henslow
Answer: B
Topic: Concept 22.2
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
12) As a young biologist, Charles Darwin had expected the living plants of temperate South America would resemble those of temperate Europe, but he was surprised to find that they more closely resembled the plants of tropical South America. The biological explanation for this observation is most properly associated with the field of
A) meteorology.
B) embryology.
C) vertebrate anatomy.
D) bioengineering.
E) biogeography.
Answer: E
Topic: Concept 22.2
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
13) Which of these naturalists synthesized a concept of natural selection independently of Darwin?
A) Charles Lyell
B) Gregor Mendel
C) Alfred Wallace
D) John Henslow
E) Thomas Malthus
Answer: C
Topic: Concept 22.2
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
14) Charles Darwin was the first person to propose
A) that evolution occurs.
B) a mechanism for how evolution occurs.
C) that the Earth is older than a few thousand years.
D) a mechanism for evolution that was supported by evidence.
E) a way to use artificial selection as a means of domesticating plants and animals.
Answer: D
Topic: Concept 22.2
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
15) In Darwin's thinking, the more closely related two different organisms are, the
A) more similar their habitats are.
B) less similar their DNA sequences are.
C) more recently they shared a common ancestor.
D) less likely they are to have the same genes in common.
E) more similar they are in size.
Answer: C
Topic: Concepts 22.1, 22.2
Skill:
Knowledge/Comprehension
16) Which of these conditions should completely prevent the occurrence of natural selection in a population over time?
A) All variation between individuals is due only to environmental factors.
B) The environment is changing at a relatively slow rate.
C) The population size is large.
D) The population lives in a habitat where there are no competing species present.
Answer: A
Topic: Concept 22.2
Skill: Application/Analysis
17) Natural selection is based on all of the following except
A) genetic variation exists within populations.
B) the best-adapted individuals tend to leave the most offspring.
C) individuals who survive longer tend to leave more offspring than those who die young.
D) populations tend to produce more individuals than the environment can support.
E) individuals adapt to their environments and, thereby, evolve.
Answer: E
Topic: Concept 22.2
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
18) Which of the following represents an idea that Darwin learned from the writings of Thomas Malthus?
A) All species are fixed in the form in which they are created.
B) Populations tend to increase at a faster rate than their food supply normally allows.
C) Earth changed over the years through a series of catastrophic upheavals.
D) The environment is responsible for natural selection.
E) Earth is more than 10,000 years old.
Answer: B
Topic: Concept 22.2
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
19) Which statement about natural selection is most correct?
A) Adaptations beneficial in one habitat should generally be beneficial in all other habitats as well.
B) Different species that occupy the same habitat will adapt to that habitat by undergoing the same genetic changes.
C) Adaptations beneficial at one time should generally be beneficial during all other times as well.
D) Well-adapted individuals leave more offspring, and thus contribute more to the next generation's gene pool, than do poorly adapted individuals.
E) Natural selection is the sole means by which populations can evolve.
Answer: D
Topic: Concept 22.2
Skill: Synthesis/Evaluation
20)
Given a population that contains genetic variation, what is the correct sequence of the following events, under the influence of natural selection?
1. Well-adapted individuals leave more offspring than do poorly adapted individuals.
2. A change occurs in the environment.
3. Genetic frequencies within the population change.
4. Poorly adapted individuals have decreased survivorship.
A) 2 → 4 → 1 → 3
B) 4 → 2 → 1 → 3
C) 4 → 1 → 2 → 3
D) 4 → 2 → 3 → 1
E) 2 → 4 → 3 → 1
Answer: A
Topic: Concept 22.2
Skill: Synthesis/Evaluation
21) A biologist studied a population of squirrels for 15 years. During that time, the population was never fewer than 30 squirrels and never more than 45. Her data showed that over half of the squirrels born did not survive to reproduce, because of competition for food and predation. In a single generation, 90% of the squirrels that were born lived to reproduce, and the population increased to 80. Which inference(s) about this population might be true?
A) The amount of available food may have increased.
B) The number of predators may have decreased.
C) The squirrels of subsequent generations should show greater levels of genetic variation than previous generations, because squirrels that would not have survived in the past will now survive.
D) A and B only
E) A, B, and C
Answer: E
Topic: Concept 22.2
Skill: Synthesis/Evaluation
22) To observe natural selection's effects on a population, which of these must be true?
A) One must observe more than one generation of the population.
B) The population must contain genetic variation.
C) Members of the population must increase or decrease the use of some portion of their anatomy.
D) A and C only
E) A and B only
Answer: E
Topic: Concepts 22.1, 22.2
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
23) If the HMS Beagle had completely bypassed the Galapagos Islands, Darwin would have had a much poorer understanding of the
A) relative stability of a well-adapted population's numbers over many generations.
B) ability of populations to undergo modification as they adapt to a particular environment.
C) tendency of organisms to produce the exact number of offspring that the environment can support.
D) unlimited resources that support population growth in most natural environments.
E) lack of genetic variation among all members of a population.
Answer: B
Topic: Concept 22.2
Skill: Application/Analysis
24) During drought years on the Galapagos, small, easily eaten seeds become rare, leaving mostly large, hard-cased seeds that only birds with large beaks can eat. If a drought persists for several years, what should one expect to result from natural selection?
A) Small birds gaining larger beaks by exercising their mouth parts.
B) Small birds mutating their beak genes with the result that later-generation offspring have larger beaks.
C) Small birds anticipating the long drought and eating more to gain weight and, consequently, growing larger beaks.
D)
More small-beaked birds dying than larger-beaked birds. The offspring produced in subsequent generations have a higher percentage of birds with large beaks.
E) Larger birds eating less so smaller birds can survive.
Answer: D
Topic: Concept 22.2
Skill: Application/Analysis
25) Which of the following statements is an inference of natural selection?
A) Subsequent generations of a population should have greater proportions of individuals that possess traits better suited for success in unchanging environments.
B) An individual organism undergoes evolution over the course of its lifetime.
C) Habitats do not generally have unlimited resources.
D) Natural populations tend to reproduce to their full biological potential.
E) Some of the variation that exists among individuals in a population is genetic.
Answer: A
Topic: Concept 22.2
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
26) Which of the following must exist in a population before natural selection can act upon that population?
A) Genetic variation among individuals
B) Variation among individuals caused by environmental factors
C) Sexual reproduction
D) B and C only
E) A, B, and C
Answer: A
Topic: Concept 22.2
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
27) Which of Darwin's ideas had the strongest connection to Darwin having read Malthus's essay on human population growth?
A) Descent with modification
B) Variation among individuals in a population
C) Struggle for existence
D) The ability of related species to be conceptualized in "tree thinking"
E) That the ancestors of the Galapagos finches had come from the South American mainland
Answer: C
Topic: Concept 22.2
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
The following questions refer to the evolutionary tree in Figure 22.2.
The tree's horizontal axis is a timeline that extends from 100,000 years ago to the present; the vertical axis represents nothing in particular. The labeled branch points on the tree (V—Z) represent various common ancestors. Let's say that only since 50,000 years ago has there been enough variation between the lineages depicted here to separate them into distinct species, and only the tips of the lineages on this tree represent distinct species.
Figure 22.2
28) How many separate species, both extant and extinct, are depicted in this tree?
A) 2
B) 3
C) 4
D) 5
E) 6
Answer: E
Topic: Concepts 22.2, 22.3
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
29) According to this tree, what percent of the species seem to be extant (i.e., not extinct)?
A) 25%
B) 33%
C) 50%
D) 66%
E) 75%
Answer: D
Topic: Concepts 22.2, 22.3
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
30) Which of the five common ancestors, labeled V—Z, has given rise to the greatest number of species, both extant and extinct?
A) V
B) W
C) X
D) Y
E) Z
Answer: C
Topic: Concepts 22.2, 22.3
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
31) Which of the five common ancestors, labeled V—Z, has been least successful in terms of the percent of its derived species that are extant?
A) V
B) W
C) X
D) Y
E) Z
Answer: B
Topic: Concepts 22.2, 22.3
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
32) Which of the five common ancestors, labeled V—Z, has been most successful in terms of the percent of its derived species that are extant?
A) V
B) W
C) X
D) Y
E) Z
Answer: E
Topic: Concepts 22.2, 22.3
Skill: Knowledge/Comprehension
33) Which pair would probably have agreed with the process that is depicted by this tree?
A) Cuvier and Lamarck
B) Lamarck and Wallace
C) Aristotle and Lyell
D) Wallace and Linnaeus
E) Linnaeus and Lamarck
Answer: B
Topic: Concepts 22.1, 22.2