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What role do mutations play in evolution?
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Mutations are genetic changes that can be harmful, beneficial, or neutral and contribute to the genetic diversity necessary for evolution.
What is a key misconception about individual organisms in the context of evolution?
A common misconception is that individual organisms evolve during their lifetime, whereas evolution occurs over generations in populations.
What is gene flow and how does it affect populations?
Gene flow is the movement of genes between populations, often through migration, and it introduces genetic variety to populations.
What can the fossil record tell us about evolution?
The fossil record provides evidence of how characteristics in organisms have changed over time and reveals traits of ancestral species.
How does biogeography support the theory of evolution?
Biogeography studies the distribution of species across the geographic landscape, showing how isolated environments (e.g., islands) can lead to unique evolution paths while maintaining relationships to nearby mainland species.
Give an example of ongoing evolution in modern times.
An example of ongoing evolution is antibiotic resistance in bacteria, where bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics due to selective pressures.
What is the importance of molecular homologies in understanding evolution?
Molecular homologies, such as DNA and protein similarities, provide evidence of relatedness between species and support evolutionary relationships.
How is the term 'fitness' used differently in biology compared to casual use?
In biology, 'fitness' relates to the number of offspring and genes passed down, not physical strength.
Explain how continental drift has influenced the distribution of species, using marsupials as an example.
Continental drift has caused species to be distributed across separate land masses. For example, marsupials in Australia and South America share ancestry due to past connections of the continents (Pangea).
How does embryology provide evidence for evolution?
Embryology shows similar developmental stages (e.g., notochords, pharyngeal slits) in different vertebrates, suggesting common ancestry.
How does natural selection influence evolution?
Natural selection drives evolution by favoring traits that improve an organism's chances of survival and reproduction.
Describe genetic drift and how it might occur.
Genetic drift refers to changes in the genetic makeup of a population due to random events, such as a natural disaster or random predation.
Differentiate between homologous and analogous structures with examples.
Homologous structures (e.g., human arm and dog forelimb) arise from common ancestry and may have different functions, whereas analogous structures (e.g., bird wing and insect wing) have similar functions but do not share a common ancestry.
Define biological evolution.
Biological evolution is the change in a population's inherited traits over generations.
What are vestigial structures and provide an example.
Vestigial structures are inherited features that have lost most or all of their original function, such as the claw on chicken wings.
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