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