Evolution Study Guide
Chapter 15 (Pages 297-310)
1. What is evolution?
2. According to Darwin, how long does evolution take to occur?
3. Darwin wrote a book entitled The Origin of the Species. What was
the book’s main idea?
4. When Darwin published his first book about evolution, what were
some of the main ideas that he included?
5. Define natural selection.
6. Without genetic variation in species, _________ __________ could
not occur.
7. What are fossils? List some examples.
8. What are some ways fossils are formed?
9. If populations of the same species live in different places, what
would happen to those populations?
10.Where did Darwin do most of his observations of organisms and
get most of his ideas for his theory of evolution?
11.Darwin observed many species of finches that differed in the
shape of their beaks. What was his conclusion from this
observation?
12. Why did Darwin believe that the animals of the Galapagos Islands
were similar to those of the nearby coast of South America?
13.What is adaptation?
14.Since natural resources like food, water and shelter are limited,
what must all organisms do in order to survive?
15.If a population grew and resources were scarce (limited), what
would happen?
16.What are homologous structures? List an example.
17.What are analogous structures? List an example.
18.If you analyze the DNA from organisms that share homologous
structures, what would you conclude?
19.Complete the sentence. Homologous structures provide evidence
that…
20.Define vestigial structures and list some human examples.
21.The beak of a bird and the beak of a giant squid evolved
independently, but serve the same function. What kind of
structures are they?
22.List the 5 types of evidence for evolution.
23.The occurrence of the same blood protein in a group of species
provides what evidence?
24.List the 5 types of evidence of evolution.
25.Cytochrome C is a protein that is involved in cellular respiration
in all eukaryotic organisms. Human cytochrome c contains 104
amino acids. Use the following table to compare human
cytochrome c with cytochrome c from other organisms and
answer the question below.
Write true or false for each of the following statements regarding the
table.
_____ a. Chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than yeasts
are.
_____ b. The cytochrome c of chimps differs from that of rhesus
monkeys by only one amino acid.
_____ c. Dogs are more closely related to humans than chickens are.
_____ d. All of the proteins produced by chimps and humans are
identical.
26.What does the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory predict?
(page 307)
27.Define divergent evolution and give an example.
28.Define convergent evolution and give an example.
29.The process in which two or more species become more adapted
over time to each other’s presence is called what?
30.List an example of coevolution.
31.A biologist analyzes the DNA sequences in three different
primates. The biologist finds that primates A and B have nearly
identical DNA sequences. The DNA sequences in primate C are
significantly different from those of primate A. What can the
biologist infer from this observation?
32.Define uniformitarianism.
33.Artificial selection has been used by humans to ___________ up
the process of ___________ evolution.
34.The idea of inheritance of acquired characteristics was proposed
by whom?