For most of the last 130,000 years, the global climate has almost always been
a. hotter than at present.
b. colder than at present.
c. about the same as at present.
d. sometimes much hotter and sometimes about the same as present.
Imagine you have found a skull with an ape-size brain, sagittal crest, very large back
teeth, and large cheekbones. Based on this information, this is most likely a specimen of
a. Australopithecus afarensis.
b. a robust australopith.
c. Australopithecus africanus.
d. a modern human.
One of the things that Darwin had difficulty explaining was how inheritance worke
d. Why was inheritance so difficult for Darwin?
a. The prevailing theory of inheritance was based on random mating.
b. The prevailing theory of inheritance was incompatible with the maintenance of
variation.
c. The prevailing theory of inheritance implied that variation was not inherited from
parents.
d. The prevailing theory of inheritance implied that too much variation exists for natural
selection to operate.
Which of the following provides an example of why Jenkin called Darwin’s ideas
incompatible?
a. Tall and short individuals are not able to breed with one another because they look
different.
b. If tall and short individuals breed with one another, all of their offspring will be short,
and variation will disappear.
c. If tall and short individuals breed with one another, all of their offspring will be tall,
and variation will disappear.
d. If tall and short individuals breed with one another, all offspring will be intermediate
in height, and variation will disappear.
Although it would be advantageous for animals to be large enough to be invulnerable to
predators, but agile enough to leap considerable distances, ________ make(s) this
evolutionarily impossible.
a. behavioral plasticity
b. physical constraints
c. genetic drift
d. gene flow
Convergent evolution occurs
a. when all members of a species become more similar.
b. as a result of stabilizing selection.
c. when natural selection produces similar adaptations in unrelated species.
d. when individuals have equal fitness.
Which of the following is predicted to occur after conflict results in violence as a way
to mend relationships?
a. Huddling
b. Reconciliation
c. Coalition formation
d. Altruism
Genetic data from fossils and living groups of people tell us that
a. modern humans evolved in Africa between 200 and 400 kya and all modern humans
outside of Africa are descended from an African population.
b. one small population of modern people left East Africa about 60 kya and first
traveled along the southern coast of Asia and then into Eurasia.
c. there was extensive interbreeding between modern human populations and other
hominins that lived in Eurasia, such as the Neanderthals.
d. modern humans migrated out of Africa to Europe first and then traveled east to Asia.
Consider a population of 20 AA, 40 Aa, and 40 aa individuals. A is a dominant allele
causing death before reproductive age. What are the genotypic frequencies of the next
generation after selection?
a. All AA individuals
b. All aa individuals
c. 50% AA and 50% aa individuals
d. 25% AA and 75% aa individuals
Female nonhuman primates often begin to reproduce before they are fully grown.
Empirical evidence supports the idea that these young females
a. can achieve high fertility and low infant mortality equivalent to middle-age and older
females.
b. will have shorter interbirth intervals than fully grown females.
c. will have lower fertility than middle-age females.
d. will not achieve full adult size in their lifetime.
Recent studies indicate that high-ranking male primates have
a. lower reproductive success than low-ranking or alien males.
b. higher reproductive success than low-ranking or alien males.
c. reproductive success equal to that of low-ranking and alien males.
d. limited reproductive success because of the stress of high rank.
In primate dentition, the left side of a jaw is identical to the right side. This is called
a. bilateral symmetry.
b. homologous dentition.
c. positive correlation.
d. pleiotrophy.
Kipsigis men may assess the reproductive potential of prospective brides by
a. counting the number of previous sexual partners of the woman.
b. calculating their age at menarche.
c. their weight.
d. their height.
Primitive features of Homo heidelbergensis include
a. a receding forehead.
b. a skull that is narrow behind the eyes.
c. thick cranial bones.
d. a sagittal crest.
Ancestral characters are traits that
a. characterize the last common ancestor that a particular collection of species share.
b. evolved after the last common ancestor that a particular collection of species share.
c. are less well suited to the environment than derived characters.
d. are less specialized than derived characters.
When a population reaches fixation,
a. disequilibrium has occurred.
b. it has lost one of the two alleles that code for a character.
c. the mean value of a correlated character has changed.
d. mutation has added new variation to the population.
The single factor that can compensate for low rank and its corresponding decrease in
reproductive success is
a. age at maturity.
b. choice of mates.
c. positive social relationships.
d. longevity.
If a population is in stasis (an unchanging state), then
a. the population is in its natural state.
b. natural selection is not acting on the population.
c. the most common type of individual is consistently favored by stabilizing selection.
d. the most common type of individual is consistently favored by disruptive selection.
Radiometric techniques provide researchers with the ability to
a. search for extraterrestrials.
b. extract DNA from inside fossils.
c. determine the morphology of a fossil.
d. determine the age of a fossil.
Resource-defense territoriality occurs when
a. resources are distributed over a wide area.
b. resources are abundant and thus worth defending.
c. food is clumped in a space.
d. females are clumped in space.
Territories are
a. fixed areas defended by members of a group against conspecifics.
b. fixed areas defended by members of a group against other species.
c. areas where members of a group are often found.
d. areas where groups come together in areas where their ranges overlap.
Homo ergaster shared important adaptive traits with modern humans, including
a. complex foraging technology.
b. fast life histories.
c. a very large brain for their body size.
d. occipital torus.
Generally, Buss’s cross-cultural data show that
a. females value mutual love and attraction in a mate more than males do.
b. males and females differ in their mate preferences in ways predicted by evolutionary
theory.
c. gender has a stronger influence on mate preference than culture.
d. chastity is a high-ranking trait for males and females.
Which of the following is NOTa reason that reproductive isolation occurs?
a. An increase in a population’s size
b. Variation in a species’ courtship behavior
c. Restriction in a population’s habitat
d. Variation in individual’s activity patterns
Homo ergaster lived in diverse areas of Africa before extending their range into
Eurasia. What does this tell you about this species? What anatomical and behavioral
characteristics may have aided the migration of Homo ergaster?
Which of the following factors is hypothesized to contribute to the intelligence of
primates?
a. Teaching behaviors to others
b. Provisioning
c. Competitive pressures produced by sociality
d. Manually manipulating food
In general, larger continents have
a. calmer weather than smaller continents.
b. the same weather as smaller continents.
c. more severe weather than smaller continents.
d. more consistent weather than smaller continents.
Humans have
a. a femur that descends vertically from the pelvis.
b. a knee joint that is not slanted or angled toward the midline of the body.
c. cortical bone that is evenly distributed around the femur.
d. a divergent big toe.
Even though natural selection was named after the artificial selection that plant and
animal breeders use, it really refers to
a. the survival of the physically fit.
b. the reproduction of traits from generation to generation.
c. the selective retention of variation in a population.
d. the variable ability of species to survive and reproduce.
Genetic evidence indicates that humans underwent a ________ between 90,000 and
200,000 years ago, which is why the human species is less genetically variable than are
other species.
a. geographic expansion
b. bottleneck
c. geologic catastrophe
d. cultural revolution
Deleterious alleles (lethal recessives) can remain at low frequencies in populations
because
a. mutation can alter the allele to decrease its lethality.
b. most individuals who carry the gene are heterozygous and do not suffer
consequences of having two copies of the gene.
c. heterozygotes most often pass on the dominant allele.
d. many, but not all, homozygous recessive individuals die.
For natural selection to occur, variation must exist. This is true because without
variation
a. there is no way for change to occur between generations.
b. the one trait that exists is always advantageous, and change is not necessary.
c. there is no competition among individuals.
d. traits are never inherited by offspring.
________ do not produce any change in the amino acid sequence of a protein.
a. Transposable elements
b. Synonymous substitutions
c. Microsatellite loci
d. Highly accelerated regions