Practise using taxonomy, cladograms, molecular evidence and molecular clocks to infer evolutionary relationships and classification.
Evolution causes gene pools to change over time and new species to be formed.
Explain how a newly discovered plant species would be classified and named.
Which is the hierarchy of taxa in order of increasing numbers of species?
genus, family, order, class
class, order, genus, family
genus, family, class, order
class, order, family, genus
Evolution is the change in the heritable characteristics of a population.
Explain how evolutionary relationships and cladograms can be used for classification.
Define clade.
The evolutionary clock estimates the time elapsed since species separated from a common ancestor based on fossil evidence. The graph shows the number of differences in the DNA sequences (nucleotide substitutions) coding for certain polypeptides in 11 closely related mammals.
State the relationship between divergence time and number of substitutions.
International agreement limits the hunting of whales. Only the meat of the Minke, Fin and Humpback whales from Southern Hemisphere populations is allowed to be sold on the domestic market in Japan. Scientists obtained five samples of food that were being sold as "whale meat" in a Japanese market place. They identified the species and probable geographic origin of the meat using genetic analysis. The results were used to construct the cladogram.
Explain how sequence alignment software might have been used in this study.
The gut of a healthy human contains more than 1000 species of bacteria. Some of these species are shown in the cladogram.
Identify, with a reason, whether the cladogram shows species X is more closely related to M. luminyensis or to E. faecalis.
The figwort family is a large one consisting of many flowering plants that look similar. For what reason have some members of the family been reclassified into a new family?
Cladistic analysis shows the differences in flower structure to be fewer than the shared similarities.
DNA analysis shows the similarities in flower shape to be a product of convergent evolution.
DNA analysis shows some of the families to have suffered recent mutations in only one gene.
DNA analysis shows the similarities between the seed dispersal strategies to be a product of divergent evolution.
The black-legged tick (Ixodes scapularis) is an arthropod which sucks blood from humans and other mammals. It is encountered mainly in wooded and semi-wooded areas.
Some ticks can be infected by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi. When a tick bites a human, the bacterium is often introduced, causing Lyme disease. Lyme disease is a public health problem in North America and, if left untreated, can cause important neurological impairment. The diagram represents the two-year life cycle of a tick.
State the domain into which ticks are classified.