Semester 2 Final Biology

What is the term for a feature that allows an organism to survive better in its environment?

adaptation

The remnant of an organ that had a function in an early ancestor is known as a

vestigial structure

What observations did Charles Darwin make about flinches in the Galápagos Islands?

different species on different islands

Which scientist developed a classification system for organisms?

Linnaeus

Which theory states that floods and earthquakes have occurred often in Earth’s history?

Catastrophism

What is the process in which humans breed organisms for certain traits?

artificial selection

Individuals that are well adapted to their environment will survive and produce…

more offspring

All the individuals of a species that live in a particular area are called a

population

Which scientist proposed that if an organism used a structure so much that it grew, the trait of that larger structure could be passed to its offspring?

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

The theory that landforms on Earth’s surface, such as mountains, waterfalls, and canyons, were created as the result of sudden spectacular events is called the theory of

gradualism

Charles Lyell developed a theory that states that geological processes that shaped the Earth in the past have stayed the same throughout time. This is the theory of

uniformitarianism

If two species have similar DNA sequences, it would indicate that they share

a common ancestor

Give some evidence for a past evolutionary relationship can be seen in different groups of vertebrates?

similar features in embryo

As an environment changes, and some organisms have a higher fitness than others, natural selection acts directly on…

existing variations

The DNA sequences of whales and ungulates, or hooved animals, are very similar. What type of evidence of evolution is this?

molecular evolution

Differences in courtship or mating

behavioral isolation

Physical barriers dividing populations

geographic isolation

Timing of reproduction periods

temporal isolation

Evolution towards similar traits in unrelated species

convergent

Different traits in closely related species

divergent

The rise of two or more species from one existing species

speciation

List two random processes that can change gene pools

mutation and recombination

When two species evolve with each other

coevolution

The total and permanent disappearance of a species from Earth is called

extinction

Fossils that consist of minerals that have filled in an open mold of an organism are called

natural cast

Fossils of organisms that exist only during specific spans of time

index fossils

The smallest unit of geological time is

epochs

How old is Earth?

4\.6 billion years

What experiment demonstrated that Earth could produce amino acids and nucleotides?

the Miller-Urey experiment

Scientists hypothesize that cyanobacteria changed the early Earth by…

giving off oxygen

The evolution of sexual reproduction resulted in…

increased genetic variation

The first land organisms emerged during the

paleozoic era

The Age of Reptiles is the term often used to describe which era?

Mesozoic

What group of animals includes modern humans?

primates

Fossil evidence suggests Homo sapiens first appeared

200,000 years ago

A mammoth frozen in ice in Siberia is an example of

preserved remains

The Cretaceous is an example of a

period

Give an important adaptive advantage of walking upright

frees hands for foraging, carrying infants and food, and using tools

The rapid diversification of species that occurred in the early Paleozoic era is called the

Cambrian Explosion

A group of organisms of the same species that live in the same area is called a

population

The variety of living things in an ecosystem

biodiversity

What organism helps convert gaseous nitrogen into ammonia in the nitrogen cycle?

bacteria

Organisms that feed on dead or decaying matter are called

detrivores

Which group of organisms provides most of the energy in ecosystems?

producers

An organism that has an unusually large effect on an ecosystem is called a

keystone species

a major regional or global community of organisms is called a

biome

Which model shows the number of organisms at each trophic level in an ecosystem?

pyramid of numbers

A model that shows a single sequence of feeding relationships is called a

food chain

What compares energy used by producers and other trophic levels?

an energy pyramid

What does primary consumers eat?

producers

What does secondary consumers eat?

primary consumers

What do tertiary consumers eat?

secondary consumers

Which trophic level has the most available energy?

1st or lowest

How much energy is lost between each energy level?

90%

When two species compete for the same resource, they sometimes divide this resource. This is an example of

niche partitioning

Hawks and foxes compete to eat field mice. This is a form of

interspecific competition

When both species benefit

mutualism

when one species benefits and the other is unharmed

commensalism

When one species benefits and the other is harmed

parasitism

The mantella frog and poison dart frog occupy similar niches in similar habitats in different parts of the world. Because of this, they are considered to be

ecological equivalents

A leech feeding on a host’s blood is an example of what type of relationship?

parasitism

To measure population density, you must divide the number of individuals living in a defined space by the

area of the space

Nesting birds often space themselves evenly from the other nests. This pattern is called

uniform dispersion

Which type of organism would be most likely to have a type II survivorship curve?

one is preyed their whole life

Which two factors will increase the size of population?

immigration and birth

Predation, competition, parasitism, and disease are examples of

density-dependent limiting factor

The first species is an area that colonizes after the ecosystem is damaged is a

pioneer species

Organisms are named and classified based on physical characteristics in

cladograms

List the Linnaean Taxa in the correct order from general to specific

domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species

What is defined as a group of organisms that can breed and produce offspring?

species

What is at the top of the cladogram?

clade

What is the bars that show the species?

node

What are the slashes that show the common characteristics?

derived character

Carl Woese divided the kingdom Monera into the kingdoms Bacteria and

Archaea

A  group of organisms in a classification system is called a

taxon

Which type of molecular clock is used to measure evolutionary time between the most distantly related organisms?

ribosomal RNA

a scientific name consists of the

genus capitalized and species lowercased

This group of organisms are the most abundant group of organisms on Earth?

bacteria

What are the three domains?

Bacteria, Archaea, Eukarya

Modern classification is mainly based on

phylogeny

What are the three groups of modern amphibians?

salamanders, frogs, caecilians

Two adaptations that make some fish extremely efficient predators?

lateral line and jaws

The chief function of an amniotic egg is to…

keep embryo from drying out

Main function of gills?

take in dissolved oxygen and release carbon dioxide

What passes through a chordate’s pharyngeal slits?

Water

How do lampreys hold on to their prey?

suckers

What is the term for the fan-shaped array of bones in fish such as goldfish and tuna?

ray-finned

The coelacanth belongs to which group of fish?

lobe-finned

Which animals were the first to develop four limbs?

amphibians

Sharks have skeletons made of

cartilage

A fish’s swim bladder helps it…

float

Which of the following is a membranous organ that develops in female mammals during pregnancy?

placenta

What are the four chordate features?

notochord, pharyngeal slits, hollow nerve cord, tail

Compared to an ectotherm, an endothermic must

use metabolic heat to keep tissues warm

Which unique features of a reptile’s circulatory system allows it to maintain blood flow to the body when it’s not breathing?

single ventricle

Synapsids, anapids, and diapids are all groups of…

reptiles

What adaptation of early reptiles allowed vertebrates to evolve in land environments?

membranous amniotic egg

Fossils evidence suggest that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs that ran to catch prey. This evidence supports the hypothesis that…

flight originated with use of wings for balance

Characteristics of mammals

hair, jaw, middle ear containing 3 bones, mammary glands

Which reptilian traits or structures have monotremes retained?

a sprawling posture, cloaca, amniotic egg with leathery shell