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MASSEY UNIVERSITY
ALBANY CAMPUS
EXAMINATION FOR
196.207 BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION

Semester 2 - 2012

TIME ALLOWED: THREE (3) HOURS

Answer ALL questions from SECTION A.

Answer THREE (3) questions from SECTION B.

Section A consists of 10 short answer questions.

Each question is worth 3 marks, 30 marks in total. Allocate 1 hour for Section A.
Section B consists of six long answer questions.
Each question is worth 20 marks, 60 marks in total. Allocate 2 hours for Section B.

TOTAL marks: 90
All answers are to be written in the blue answer book provided.

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SECTION A (Short answer questions)

[Answer ALL questions from SECTION A]

1.

Briefly describe the main difference between the theories of molecular

evolution of neutralists versus selectionists.

2.

a) What is the ultimate source of genetic variation and why is genetic

variation important in evolutionary biology?
b) Briefly describe how can you determine if phenotypic variation is due to
genetic variation, environmental variation or both.

3.

a) What is the difference between substitution rate and mutation rate?

b) Briefly explain how you can measure these rates?

4.

Outline the relationship between the concepts of natural selection and

evolution?

5.

We discussed Dr. Paul Rainey's pioneering study using Pseudomonas

fluorescens to look at change in populations over time.
Adaptive radiation was observed within 10 days.
(a) What feature of the environment allowed the radiation to proceed?
(b) Did the experimental design increase the mutation rate of the bacteria?
Why / Why not?
(c) Consider the wrinkly spreader and fuzzy spreader variants. Why were
these variants not observed in the shaken cultures? What happens to them
over 10 days in static cultures and why? [You may illustrate your answer with a
diagram if you wish]

6.

In evolutionary biology it is tempting to assume that new traits are adaptive

but this is not trivial to demonstrate and other alternatives should be
considered.
a) List three processes, other than adaptation, that can lead to the
appearance of new traits.
b) Choose one of these three and in two or three sentences describe how this
process could lead to what appears to be an adaptation. You may use an
example from the lectures if you wish.

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7.

What is a "Darwinian sub-system"?

8.

List, define, and provide an example for the different types of co-evolutionary
interactions (narrow sense).

9.

When would Haldane risk his life to save a drowning man, and why?

10.

What is meant by the two-fold cost of sex?

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SECTION B (Long answer questions)

[Answer THREE (3) questions from SECTION B]

1.

You have spent years of your life in the dedicated

study of a population of beetles. At left are two
sets of data that you have generated that describe
the population of interest. Soon after you started
examining your beetles you became interested in a
trait that appears to be determined by a single
locus and has only two possible alleles. The
phenotype is wing colour. The genotype and
phenotypes map as follows:
A1 A1 = Red wings
A1 A2 = Purple wings
A2 A2 = Blue wings
Figure A is a representation of the population's
mean fitness per observed frequency of the A1
allele.
Figure B is a representation of the change in the
observed frequency of allele A1 over a period of 50
years.
Answer the following questions based on the data available:
(a) At what frequency of the A1 allele does the population have a higher
mean fitness: 0.25 or 0.8?
[1 mark]

(b) Estimate the mean fitness of a population of beetles in which the

frequency of the A2 (NB: not A1) allele at this location is 0.4.
[1 mark]

(c) According to Figure B, over what span of years did the population of
beetles have the lowest mean fitness?
[1 mark]

(d) Based on the data shown here, what was the least common beetle wing
colour in this population in 1981? Show your working.
[2 marks]

(e) Something pretty dramatic happened to this population between 1970 and
1980. Describe in your own words what happened in terms of the change
in allelic frequencies based on the data above.
[5 marks]

(f) Assuming that the environment of the population stayed constant during the
transition from the 70s to the 80s, hypothesize about what might account
for the dramatic change in allelic frequencies.
[10 marks]

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2.

The figures to the right each show a

sample of 4 chromosomes from a
population. Four neutral
polymorphisms, such as SNPs, are
indicated (variants: diamond, circle, arrow,
square, star and pac-man).

In Time Point 1 a new mutation arises on a

single chromosome, indicated by X.
Time Points 2A, 2B

and 2C represent three

possible samplings of chromosomes long
after the observed mutation X in Time
Point 1 arose.
Assume that the populations being sampled are large and that our samples
are representative for the population as a whole.
How could the population from Time Point 1 give rise to the population
represented in each of Time Points 2A, 2B and 2C?
Carefully consider all of the evolutionary concepts that we have developed in
this course to describe a scenario for each transition.
(a) Time Point 1 to Time Point 2A:
[3 marks]

(b) Time Point 1 to Time Point 2B:

[3 marks]

(c) Time Point 1 to Time Point 2C:

[3 marks]

(d) Amongst these time points there is evidence of recombination having

occurred. Describe where recombination has taken place (i.e. at which time
points did it occur and between which SNPs).
[5 marks]

(e) Is this recombination evidence of selection acting on the populations

sampled? Justify your assertion.
[6 marks]

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3.

(a) Describe the Hardy-Weinberg (H-W) principle.

[4 marks]

(b) What are the five most important assumptions of the H-W principle?
[5 marks]

(c) Why is it important to determine if a population is in H-W equilibrium?

[3 marks]

(d) Calculate genotype frequencies and allele frequencies for the

hypothetical population described below.
[2 marks]

(e) Calculate the expected genotype frequencies under H-W equilibrium.

[4 marks]

(f) Is this population in H-W equilibrium?

[2 marks]
Total population size (N): 10000

phenotype (genotype)
White (A1A1)
Grey (A1A2)
Black (A2A2)
What is the neutral theory of molecular
evolution?
Describe how variation
at the molecula
N

2000

2000

6000

4.

Define the biological species concept. Why is it problematic?

Describe the challenges and illustrate these with examples.

5.

Using examples, explain what complexity theory is and how it is relevant to

biology.

6.

In 1994, an article appeared in Time magazine titled How man began. Within
that article was the following bold assertion: No single, essential difference
separates human beings from other animals.
Discuss this assertion and illustrate your arguments with examples we
covered in class. Your discussion should include a definition of meme. How
can language be considered analogous to the genetic code?

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