Natural Selection
In animals where coloration affects mating success, what might be a long-term consequence of a mutation causing less vibrant colors?
Immediate extinction due to failure in attracting mates altogether.
No change as coloration has negligible effects on actual survival rates.
Compensatory adaptation enhancing other traits related to reproductive success.
Decreased mating opportunities leading to reduced allele frequency over time.
In natural selection, what is determined by the environment?
Patterns of migration.
Nitrogen cycles.
Survival and reproductive success.
Specific mating ritual.
What would best explain why a horse from Africa and a horse from South America would not be likely to produce offspring?
temporal isolation
behavioral isolation
postzygotic isolation
geographic isolation
Which term refers to the differential success in reproduction by different phenotypes resulting from interactions with the environment?
Bottleneck effect.
Genetic drift.
Natural selection.
Founder effect.
Reproductive isolation causes speciation according to which definition of a species?
the biological species concept
the morphological species concept
the phylogenetic species concept
the ecological species concept
When comparing different biological systems, what primarily determines their primary productivity?
The efficiency with which consumers convert food into new biomass
The rate at which producers convert light energy into chemical energy via photosynthesis
The total biomass accumulated within a given trophic level over time
The amount of consumer waste products recycled back into the system as nutrients
The first life on Earth appeared approximately___billion years ago (bya)?
2
3.9
2.7
4.6

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Which evolutionary mechanism would most likely reduce genetic diversity within a small island bird population after a volcanic eruption decimates its numbers?
Gene flow where interbreeding between nearby island populations increases overall diversity
Sexual selection where female choice results uniformly exaggerated male traits
Genetic bottleneck effect where surviving birds represent only a subset of original genetic diversity
Founder effect since few individuals colonize a new habitat forming distinct gene pool
What is sympatric speciation?
when a species evolves only at a particular time
a new species from ancestors that both live in the same environment, for example 2 types of fish in the same pond
when species cannot reproduce and will go extinct
when a group of species is divided geographically resulting in a new species forming
In a closed ecosystem experiment, which component would likely first limit the growth of producers if it became scarce?
Sunlight
Nitrogen
Water
Carbon dioxide