BS 218  Biological Science: A Process Approach         Dr. Waterman 
Southeast Missouri State University

Study Guide 3                        Summer

Adaptation, Natural Selection and Evolution

Readings: Ch 2.2-2.3,  Ch. 17.1-117.2

Concepts: Adaptation, selection, natural selection, artificial selection, evolution, carrying capacity, competition

1. What is an adaptation (the noun)?  Give an example.

2. Use your experience with the "Oh Deer" game to explain natural selection and to help you explain the process of  "adaptation" (the verb). 

3. Next, be able to more formally state the five elements of the theory of evolution by natural selection (e.g., preexisting variation, etc.)

4.  Name three different kinds of evidence that biologists use to determine evolutionary relationships among organisms.

The Animal groups

Ch 25 esp. fig. 25.3 and table 25.1, 25.4-25.13  as well as information on the major animal phyla, material from labs.

Terms: The major phyla of animals include: sponges, cnidarians, flatworms, roundworms, molluscs, segmented worms, arthropods, echinoderms, chordates. Milestones: bilateral vs. radial symmetry, body cavity, complete digestive system, segmentation, endo vs. exoskeleton, notochord.

1. Be able to place common examples of each of the major groups in its proper phylum. For example, to what phyla do the following organisms fit? starfish, jellyfish, shark, squirrel, earthworm, snails, bees, shrimp.

2. which phylum was the first to show:  True tissues? true organs? symmetry, bilateral symmetry, body cavity, complete digestive system, segmentation, exoskeleton, endoskeleton, jointed legs, cephalization?

3. What is the adaptive advantage of segmentation? Give an example of segmentation in humans (other than washboard abs).

4.  What are the features of chordates and why are they most closely related to echinoderms?

5.  What is a disease caused by animals?

6. What are some ways humans use animals? name 5

7.  Where, internally or externally, do animals digest? And what do they eat?

8.  What is meant by a truly multicellular organism?

Vertebrates including human evolution

    Ch. 26  26.4-26.8,   Ch. 27, 27.1, 27.4-9

1. What are the distinguishing features of the five classes of vertebrates?

2. Compare the five classes of vertebrates on the way they reproduce, and tell how they are better and better adapted for land as we look at more recent fossils and living examples.

3. What are some of the problems of living on land that do not occur in aquatic environments?  What adaptations do animals have that let them live well on land?

4.  Be able to interpret dental patterns, or to figure out a dental formula given a diagram of a skull.

We may not get to the following:

3. How closely related (in terms of percent identical genes) are humans and their nearest living relatives?

4. What sets hominids apart from apes?

5. What sets all of the Homo species apart from all the other hominid species?

6. What sets modern humans apart from H. erectus?

7. When did modern H. sapiens first arise and where? When did H. sapiens appear in Europe? in the Americas?

The Plants

Ch 22.1-22.8,  plus the powerpoints on plant diversity and pollination, and the lab on flowers..
Concepts:  Adapting to terrestrial environments.  Improving chances of reproductive survival and dispersal.  Plant adaptations, general seed structure and growth patterns in beans.

Terms: Terrestrial, cuticle,  stomata, vascular system, roots, stems, leaves, seeds, gymnosperms, angiosperms, ferns, mosses, liverworts. 

1. What are some major groups of plants, based on vascular tissue/seed production?

2.   Which plants were the first to show  any vascular tissue? complex vascular tissue?  The first to have seeds? The first to have stems? The first to have leaves? The first to have flowers?

3. How did plants solve the problems of the dry terrestrial environment? List the problems and the solutions.  Think in terms of the major adaptations listed on your Plant Kingdom charts.

4. Flowering plants are the most recently evolved, yet there are more kinds of flowering plants than any other group of plants. Why have flowering plants been so successful? What role do flowers and fruits play in reproduction and seed dispersal?

5. What is the structure of a flower and how does this contribute to the success of this group?  Be able to draw and label a flower with at least 5 structures.

6.  How do humans use plants? Name at least 5 ways

7. Name a disease caused by plants

8.  What kind of "troph" are plants? What is their ecological role?

 

The Kingdom Protista - sex and multicellularity

Ch 20.2-3, and figures in text as discussed in class, lab

Terms: colonial organism, aggregation, true multicellularity.   Sexual reproduction, meiosis, gametes, fertilization, zygote.

1. The kingdom Protista is the most diverse. Explain this diversity in terms of the ways these creatures get energy/food and the organization of protistan life forms. Table 16.1 will be useful. and page 341.

2. What is the advantage of multicellularity?

3. What are two ways humans make use of members of this kingdom.

4. Name two diseases (of humans or plants) caused by protists.

5. This kingdom is one of the most important ecologically, especially in aquatic habitats . Explain.

6. Be able to draw the life cycle of a sexually reproducing organism, and show meiosis, mitosis, fertilization, the gametes and the zygote.  Show where the organism is haploid and where it is diploid (pairs of chromosomes).