SPECIATION AND MACRO EVOLUTION STUDY GUIDE
Relevant Sections of text: 24.1, 24.2, 24.4,
Objectives and study questions:
1. What is macroevolution?
2. What is speciation?
3. Explain the process of gene flow and its effect on populations involved?
4. Define gene pool
5. What is anagenisis
6. What is cladeogenisis
7. What is the definition of a species based on the biological species concept? What are the
shortcomings of this definition?
8. Briefly explain the following: morphological species concept, ecological species concept,
phylogenic species concept.
9. What is the most important in the process of speciation?
10. What is the relationship between gene flow and reproductive isolation?
11. What happens to two populations if there is no gene flow between them?
12. Describe the different types of reproductive barriers and indicate which are prezygotic and
which are post-zygotic.
13. Which pre-zygotic barriers prevent mating and which may involve an attempted mating, but
prevent gametes from fertilizing?
14. What is speciation? What are the two main types of speciation?
15. Compare and contrast allopatric and sympatric speciation.
16. Be able to recognize, and analyze descriptions of and examples of (including hypothetical
examples) of sympatric and allopatric speciation (including creating your own hypothetical
examples)
17. What is the initial barrier to reproduction in allopatric speciation? Does this initial barrier by
itself lead to reproductive incompatability and speciation?
18. List and explain the different mechanisms that can produce sympatric speciation.
19. How fast can speciation occur?
20. Describe the number of genes that can be involved with speciation.
21. What is convergent evolution
22. What is co-evolution?
23. What is adaptive radiation?