Chapter 12 Assignment:
The Forces of Evolutionary Change
1. How did James Hutton, Georges Cuvier, Georges- Louis Buffon, Jean
Baptiste de Lamarck, Charles Lyell, and Thomas Malthus influence Charles
Darwin’s thinking?
Lyell’s work led Darwin to realize that events that he was witnessing would have been
the same in the geological past. Malthus’s essay challenged Darwin to realize that not all
individuals would survive, but that there would be more produced than the habitat could
support, leading to a ‘survival of the fittest’. Wallace had a similar theory which
prompted Darwin to realize his idea was worthy of publication
2. Explain how understanding evolution is important to medicine,
agriculture, and maintaining the diversity of organisms on Earth.
Understanding evolution is useful in providing valuable information to the field of
medicine. Researchers study the evolutionary patterns of pathogenic microbes to control
pathogenic diseases. Evolutionary history of the genes that are responsible for causing the
diseases is studied by researchers to control the hereditary diseases in human.
Antibiotic resistance is an outcome of evolution through natural selection. Use of
antibiotics should be cautiously controlled in order that natural selection does not make
the pathogen to opt for resistance.
3. How does variation arise in an asexually reproducing population? A
sexually reproducing population?
Variation arises in asexual and sexual species through mutations. In sexually reproducing
species, variation spreads rapidly as a result of genetic recombination during meiosis.
4. Influenza and smallpox are diseases cause by different types of viruses.
Scientists must produce a new influenza vaccine each year, whereas the
smallpox vaccine eradicated the disease. Explain these results from an
evolutionary perspective.
Influenza viruses evolve rapidly; the same vaccine that prevents the flu in one year is
therefore likely to be ineffective in the next. The smallpox virus evolves slowly, so
researchers had multiple decades to vaccinate much of the human population. Once
enough of the population was immune to smallpox, the disease could no longer spread,
and it was eradicated.
5. Many articles about the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria claim that
overuse of antibiotics creates resistant strains. How is this incorrect?
The use of the soap doesn’t ‘create’ resistant bacteria. There were already bacteria that
had the alleles for resistance through mutation. By killing all of the individuals that aren’t
resistant to the antibiotic, the remaining population has a higher frequency of individuals
which are resistant. Within populations of bacteria, random mutations are constantly
occurring. Exposure to antibiotics does not cause such mutations, but it does cause the
death of the bacteria that do not inherit alleles that confer resistance.
6. Explain how harmful recessive alleles can persist in populations, even
though they prevent homozygous individuals from reproducing.
If a harmful recessive allele actually makes a heterozygote more able to survive and
reproduce, then the allele will be maintained in the population.
7. Fraggles are mythical, mouselike creatures that live underground beneath
a large vegetable garden. Of the 100 Fraggles in this population, 84 have
green fur and 16 have grey fur. A dominant allele F confers green fur, and a
recessive allele f confers gray fur. Assuming Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium
is operating, answer the following questions.
a. What is the frequency of the gray allele f?
b. What is the frequency of the green allele F?
c. How many Fraggles are heterozygotes (Ff)?
a)0.4
b)0.6
c)48
8. One spring, a dust storm blankets the usually green garden of the Fraggles
in gray. The green Fraggles therefore become visible to the Gorgs, who
tend the gardens and try to kill the Fraggles to protect their crops. The gray
Fraggles, however, blend easily into the dusty background. How might this
event affect evolution in the Fraggles? What mode of natural selection does
this represent?
The gray Fraggles will become more common, so the gray allele will become more
common in the population. This would represent directional selection.
9. Use the Internet to search for an example of the founder effect. Using your
examples, explain how allele frequencies in the new population differ from
the allele frequencies in the original population. Please cite the websites
you consulted!
The founder effect is the reduction in genetic variation that results when a small subset of
a large population is used to establish a new colony. The new population may be very
different from the original population, both in terms of its genotypes and phenotypes. In
some cases, the founder effect plays a role in the emergence of new species.
10. Describe the competing selective forces acting on peacock tails. Together,
do these selective forces produce disruptive, directional, or stabilizing
selection?
Natural selection constrains the length of the peacock's tail; if it is too long and heavy, the
tail will be unwieldy, and the bird will be unable to walk or fly. On the other hand,
females prefer males with a long, extravagant tail. These competing forces eliminate
birds with extreme phenotypes and select for the intermediate phenotype, illustrating
stabilizing selection.
Founder Effect. (n.d.). Retrieved March 10, 2020, from
https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Founder-Effect
