Evolution & Classification Study guide
- What is spontaneous generation (abiogenesis)? Biogenesis?
- Who are Redi and Pasteur and what were their experiments?
- Who is Charles Darwin? What were his observations and theories regarding natural selection and evolution?
- What is natural selection? What are the steps that lead to natural selection?
- What does having high fitness mean?
- Who Alfred Russel Wallace and why is he important?
- What is microevolution and macroevolution?
- Who is Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and what did he believe about evolution? What does acquired characteristics and inheritance mean?
- What is punctuated equilibrium? Gradualism? How are they different?
- Explain how fossil records, molecular record, anatomical record, and embryology are all considered evidence of evolution. Which is the most direct evidence?
- How can we determine the age of fossils? List and describe 2 ways.
- What are homologous structures? Analogous structures? Vestigial structures? List examples of each.
- What is coevolution? Give examples.
- What is convergent evolution? Divergent evolution?
- What is Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and what 5 assumptions must be met in order to be in equilibrium?
- What are the two Hardy-Weinberg equations and what does each variable represent?
- Explain how mutations, migration, genetic drift, nonrandom mating, and selection cause allele frequencies to change.
- What is gene flow and what is it caused by?
- What is immigration and emigration?
- What is genetic drift? Founder effect? Bottleneck effect? Give examples.
- What is inbreeding? Outbreeding?
- What is artificial selection? Give examples.
- What is directional selection, stabilizing selection, and disruptive selection? Give examples for each, explain the graphs.
- What is reproductive isolation?
- What are the different types of prezygotic isolating mechanisms?
- What are the different types of postzygotic isolating mechanisms?
- What is the biological species concept?
- What is classification?
- What is the polynomial system and how is it different than the binomial system?
- Who is Linnaeus and what did he contribute?
- How are scientific names written?
- What are the 8 higher categories that are used to classify organisms? Which categories are more broad or more specific than others?
- What is phylogeny? A phylogenetic tree?
- How are cladograms made?
- What are the different domains of organisms? Give examples of each.
- How are cladograms and phylogenetic trees read? What information do they give?
- What is a dichotomous key? How are they made and used?