Unit 8 Objectives
CHAPTER
13: How Populations Evolve
Chapter Objectives
Opening Essay
Describe three adaptations that help blue-footed boobies survive.
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution
13.1
13.1
13.1
13.2
13.2
13.2
13.3
13.4
13.4
13.5
13.6
Briefly summarize the history of evolutionary thought by characterizing the views of early Lamarck,
Darwin, and Greek philosophers.
Explain how Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle influenced his thinking.
Describe the ideas and events that led to Darwin’s 1859 publication of The
Origin of Species.
Explain how the work of Thomas Malthus and the process of artificial selection influenced Darwin’s
development of the idea of natural selection.
Describe Darwin’s observations and inferences in developing the concept of natural selection.
Explain why individuals cannot evolve and why evolution does not lead to
perfectly adapted organisms.
Describe two examples of natural selection known to occur in nature. Note two key points about how
natural selection works.
Explain how fossils form, noting examples of each process.
Explain how the fossil record provides some of the strongest evidence of
evolution.
Explain how biogeography, comparative anatomy, and molecular biology
support evolution.
Explain how evolutionary trees are constructed and used to represent ancestral relationships.
The Evolution of Populations
13.7
13.8
13.8
13.9
13.9
13.9–13.10
Define the gene pool, a population, and microevolution.
Explain how mutation and sexual reproduction produce genetic variation.
Explain why prokaryotes can evolve more quickly than eukaryotes.
Describe the five conditions required for the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.
What do the variables p, q, p2, q2, 2pq represent in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium?
Explain the significance of the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium to natural populations and to public health
science.
Mechanisms of Microevolution
13.11 Define genetic drift and gene flow. Explain how the bottleneck effect and the founder effect influence
microevolution.
13.11 Explain how genetic bottlenecks threaten the survival of certain species.
13.12 Explain why natural selection is the only mechanism that consistently leads to adaptive evolution.
13.13 Distinguish between stabilizing selection, directional selection, and disruptive selection. Describe an
example of each.
13.14 Define and compare intrasexual selection and intersexual selection.
13.15 Explain how antibiotic resistance has evolved.
13.16 Explain how genetic variation is maintained in populations.
13.17 Explain why natural selection cannot produce perfection.
CHAPTER
14: The Origin of Species
Chapter Objectives
Opening Essay
Explain how the absence of mammals on the Galápagos has influenced the evolution of Galápagos cormorants.
Defining Species
14.1
14.2
14.3
Distinguish between microevolution and speciation.
Compare the definitions, advantages, and disadvantages of the different species concepts.
Describe five types of prezygotic barriers and three types of postzygotic barriers that prevent
populations of closely related species from interbreeding.
Mechanisms of Speciation
14.4
Explain how geologic processes can fragment populations and lead to
speciation.
14.5 Explain how reproductive barriers might evolve in isolated populations of organisms. Refer to studies
of laboratory-raised fruit flies and monkey flowers.
14.6 Explain how sympatric speciation can occur, noting examples in plants and
animals.
14.7 Explain why polyploidy is important to modern agriculture. Explain how modern wheat evolved.
14.8 Describe the circumstances that led to the adaptive radiation of the Galápagos finches.
14.9 Describe the discoveries made by Peter and Rosemary Grant in their work with Galápagos finches.
14.10 Explain how hybrid zones are useful in the study of reproductive isolation.
14.11 Compare the gradual model and the punctuated equilibrium model of evolution. Explain how each
model applies to the fossil record.
CHAPTER
15: Tracing Evolutionary History
Chapter Objectives
Opening Essay
Compare the structure of the wings of pterosaurs, birds, and bats. Explain how the wings are based upon a
remodeling from a shared ancestral pattern.
Early Earth and the Origin of Life
15.1
15.1
15.2
15.3
Describe the conditions on the surface of the early Earth. Describe the evidence that life on Earth
existed at least 3.5 billion years ago.
Describe the four stages that might have produced the first cells on Earth.
Describe the experiments of Stanley Miller and others in understanding how life might have first
evolved on Earth.
Describe the significance of protocells and ribozymes in the origin of the first cells.
Major Events in the History of Life
15.4
15.5
15.6
Describe the key events in the history of life on Earth.
Explain how radiometric dating and the relative position of a fossil within rock strata are used to
determine the age of rocks.
Briefly describe the history of life on Earth, noting the major eras, their time range, and which types of
life were most abundant. Describe the key events that serve to divide these eras.
Mechanisms of Macroevolution
15.7
15.8
15.9
15.10
15.11
15.11
15.12
15.13
Describe how Earth’s continents have changed over the past 250 million years. Explain the
consequences of these changes for life on Earth.
Explain how volcanoes and earthquakes result from plate tectonics.
Describe the causes, frequency, and consequences of mass extinctions over the last 500 million years.
Explain how and why adaptive radiations occur.
Explain how genes that program development function in the evolution of life. (Ch. 24.3)
Define and describe examples of paedomorphosis. (Ch. 24.3)
Define exaptation and describe two examples in birds.
Explain why evolutionary trends do not reflect “directions” or “goals.”
Phylogeny and the Tree of Life (Ch. 25.3)
15.14 Distinguish between homologous and analogous structures and provide examples of each. Describe the
process of convergent evolution.
15.15 Describe the goals of systematics. List the progressively broader categories of classification used in
systematics in order, from most specific to most general.
15.16 Define the terms clade, monophyletic groups, shared derived characters, shared ancestral characters,
ingroup, outgroup, phylogenetic trees, and parsimony.
15.17 Explain how molecular biology is used as a tool in systematics. Describe examples used to study panda
and human evolution. Explain why some studies use DNA coding for ribosomal RNA (rRNA) and
other studies use mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).
15.18 Explain how molecular clocks are used to track evolutionary time. Describe the limits of this process.
15.19 Explain why a diagram of the tree of life is difficult to construct.
CHAPTER
16: Microbial Life: Prokaryotes and Protists
Chapter Objectives
Opening Essay
Explain why a coral reef is dependent upon the protists and prokaryotes that also inhabit this ecosystem.
Prokaryotes (Ch. 26.3, 27)
16.1
16.2
16.3
16.4
16.5
16.6
16.7
Describe the diverse roles and abundance of prokaryotic life.
Compare the different shapes, cell walls, and projections of prokaryotes.
Explain how bacteria can evolve quickly and how bacteria can survive stressful environments.
Describe the nutritional diversity of prokaryotes.
Explain why biofilms are unique and potentially dangerous to human health.
Explain how prokaryotes are employed to address the needs of human society.
Compare the three domains of life based upon differences in cellular and biochemical traits. Explain
why biologists consider Archaea to be more closely related to Eukarya than to Bacteria.
16.8
Describe the diverse types of Archaea living in extreme and more moderate
environments.
16.9 Distinguish between the subgroups of the domain Bacteria, noting the particular structure, special
features, and habitats of each group.
16.10 Describe some of the diseases associated with bacteria. Distinguish between exotoxins and endotoxins,
noting examples of each.
16.11 Describe the four parts of Koch’s postulates. Explain why this method is used and how it relates to our
new understanding of the cause of most peptic ulcers.
16.12 Describe the recent U.S. attacks using bacteria and the effectiveness of anthrax as a weapon.
Protists
16.13 Describe the basic types of protists. Explain why biologists currently think that they represent many
clades.
16.14 Explain how primary endosymbiosis and secondary endosymbiosis led to further cellular diversity.
16.15 Describe and distinguish between the chromalveolate groups, noting characteristics and examples of
each.
16.16 Explain how cultured algae may be used as renewable fuels and the current challenges that remain.
16.17–16.20 Describe and distinguish between the Rhizaria, Excavata, Unikonta, and
Archaeplastida groups.
16.20 Describe the life cycle of Ulva, noting each form in the alternation of generations and how each is
produced.
16.21 Describe the protist ancestors of animals, plants, and fungi. Explain how each ancestral protist group is
similar to its most likely descendants.
CHAPTER
18: The Evolution of Invertebrate Diversity
Chapter Objectives
Opening Essay
Describe the predatory and defensive strategies of the blue-ringed octopus.
Animal Evolution and Diversity (32.1, 32.3)
18.1
18.1
18.2
18.3
18.4
Describe the defining characteristics of animals.
Describe the general animal life cycle and the basic animal body plan.
Describe the Cambrian “explosion” of animal diversity and two hypotheses that have been advanced to
explain its occurrence.
Explain how a hydrostatic skeleton helps an animal keep its shape and move.
Characterize the nine animal phyla discussed in this chapter in terms of the following traits: (a)
presence or absence of true tissues, (b) no symmetry, radial symmetry, or bilateral symmetry, (c) no
coelom, a pseudocoelom, or a true coelom, and (d) protostomes or deuterostomes.
Invertebrate Diversity (Ch. 33)
18.5–18.14 Describe the characteristics of and distinguish between each of the following phyla: Porifera, Cnidaria,
Platyhelminthes, Nematoda, Mollusca, Annelida, Arthropoda, Echinodermata, and Chordata. Note
several examples of each phylum.
18.10 Define segmentation, explain its functions, and note the animal phyla where it occurs.
18.11–18.12 Compare the characteristics of the four major arthropod lineages. Give examples of each.
18.12 Describe the common characteristics of insects. Describe the process and significance of complete
metamorphosis.
Animal Phylogeny and Diversity Revisited
18.15 Compare the phylogenetic relationships in Figures 18.4 and 18.15, noting similarities and differences.
18.16 Explain what we have learned about the evolution of life from the study of “evo-devo.”
CHAPTER
19: The Evolution of Vertebrate Diversity
Chapter Objectives
Opening Essay
Describe the difficulties of classifying the duck-billed platypus.
Vertebrate Evolution and Diversity (Ch. 34)
19.1
19.2–19.8
19.4
19.8
Describe the key derived traits of the chordates and the chordate subgroups.
Describe the characteristics of and distinguish between each of the following vertebrate groups:
hagfishes, lampreys, chondrichthyans, ray-finned fishes, lobe-finned fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds,
and mammals.
Describe the transitional species that occupy the range between fishes and
amphibians in evolutionary history.
Distinguish between monotremes, marsupials, and placental mammals. Provide examples of each.
Primate Diversity
19.9
Compare the three main groups of living primates. List their characteristics and describe their
evolutionary relationships.
19.10 Distinguish between monkeys and apes. Compare the different groups of apes to each other and to
humans.
Hominin Evolution
19.11 Describe the evidence that suggests that hominins did not evolve in a straight line leading directly to
our species.
19.12 Describe the evidence that suggests when upright posture and large brains first evolved in humans.
19.13 Describe the evolution of larger brain size in hominins.
19.14 Describe the relationships between Neanderthals and modern humans. Describe the evidence that
suggests that all modern humans share a common ancestor that lived 160,000–200,000 years ago.
19.15 Describe the unusual characteristics of the newly discovered Homo floresiensis.
19.16 Describe the adaptive advantages of darker skin in humans living near the equator but lighter skin in
humans living in northern latitudes.
19.17 Explain why the total number of animal species alive today remains an estimate.