Phenotypic traits result
a. from learning.
b. from genes.
c. from an interaction of genes and environment.
d. either from learning or from genetic programs.
Why was natural selection difficult for Darwin to fully explain?
a. Natural selection reduces variation.
b. Natural selection acts by removing only variants of highest fitness.
c. Natural selection acts by removing only variants of the lowest fitness.
d. Natural selection does not actually remove any variants in real life.
Neanderthals
a. had relatively short life spans of no more than 45 years and often had injuries such as
bone fractures.
b. had relatively short life spans of no more than 45 years and were very healthy, with
almost no evidence of injury or disease as shown by their bones.
c. were often killed by large predators, as most of their bones are found in predator lairs
and show gnaw marks.
d. are represented by very few bones that tell us very little about their lifeways.
In Buss’s cross-cultural survey, which of the following traits did males value more than
females?
a. Ambition and industriousness
b. Good looks
c. Virginity
d. Sexual experience
Constraints on adaptation include
a. uncorrelated characters.
b. equilibrium.
c. local adaptations.
d. population genetics.
The ecological hypothesis that seeks to explain the evolution of large brains in monkeys
and apes considers which of the following to be the driving selection pressure favoring
large brains?
a. Folivory
b. Frugivory
c. Extractive foraging
d. Learning
Taphonomists believe that the Olduvai bone and stone-tool sites were not deposited by
moving water because
a. the bones do not contain characteristic water markings.
b. the sediments surrounding the bones do not contain water markings.
c. the sediments surrounding the bones are inverted, so that the top layers are oldest.
d. the sediments surrounding the bones and tools are not graded by size and weight.
Variation in mtDNA among modern humans suggests that
a. all of our DNA (nuclear and mtDNA) comes from a woman who lived about 100,000
to 400,000 years ago.
b. we are not as genetically variable as other species, such as chimpanzees.
c. modern humans evolved in Asia.
d. we are descended from Neanderthals in Africa.
Mendel crossed true-breeding plants bearing yellow seeds with true-breeding plants
bearing green seeds. He then crossed the offspring from that mating with each other (F1
generation). What was the genotypic ratio among the offspring of the F1 generation?
a. All Aa or aA
b. 25% aa, 50% Aa/aA, and 25% AA
c. All AA or aa
d. 33.3% aa, 33.3% Aa/aA, and 33.3% AA
In a playback experiment in which female baboons listened to a recording of a female’s
grunt followed by another female’s submissive fear barks,
a. females responded more strongly when they heard a higher-ranking female
responding submissively to a lower-ranking female’s grunt.
b. females responded more strongly when they heard high-ranking females in conflict
with each other.
c. females reacted to each vocalization regardless of the rank of those making the call.
d. females only reacted to the vocalizations of female kin.
What is the probability that an Aa individual will produce a gamete with an A allele?
a. 100%
b. 75%
c. 50%
d. 25%
The Yurok
a. built pyramids.
b. built snow houses that kept them warm during frigid winters.
c. made a living by raising and herding cattle.
d. constructed weirs to harvest salmon requiring the labor of hundreds of men from
different villages.
Since hunting takes a long time to learn and can be unreliable, it favored the evolution
of
a. sexual division of labor.
b. juvenile development.
c. food sharing.
d. a stronger built-in hunting instinct.
When Mendel crossed heterozygote pea plants for two different traits, he recorded a
phenotypic ratio of
a. 1:2:1.
b. 4:8:4.
c. 9:3:3:1.
d. 12:4.
Compared to the gracile australopiths, the robust australopiths
a. were twice the body size.
b. exhibit a number of derived features of the cranium and teeth.
c. were not appreciably different in any way.
d. have all come from East African sites.
During the height of the last glacial period (around 30 kya),
a. huge continental glaciers covered much of Southern Europe and North Africa.
b. sea levels rose.
c. Eurasia teemed with animals like woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer,
aurochs, musk oxen, and horses.
d. forests expanded in Africa.
You have sampled height from two populations: the Maasai of East Africa and the
Inuits of Alaska. You have determined that there is a significant difference in height
between these two populations, with Inuits being of shorter height than the Maasai. Is
this variation that you observe due solely to genetics? Why or why not?
Variation at a single locus can be maintained by
a. mutation.
b. heterozygote advantage.
c. mutation, but only if selection favors the gene also.
d. both a and b.
Reconciliatory contact between opponents immediately following an aggressive
encounter can reduce rates of self-scratching, an indicator of stress. If no reconciliation
is attempted, then we can assume that
a. rates of self-scratching drop back to baseline, regardless of stress level.
b. rates of self-scratching remain above baseline, indicating high stress levels.
c. only one opponent experiences high stress levels.
d. the opponent will have high rates of aggression between them in the future.
Which of the following is an example of behavior almost totally unique to modern
humans?
a. Tool use
b. Art
c. Living in Europe
d. Living in a social group
Compared with the strepsirrhines, the haplorrhines are
a. More often active during the night.
b. more dependent on smell than on vision.
c. smaller brained.
d. found in larger and more complex social groups.
Which of the following statements about ancient hominins is NOT true?
a. Homo ergaster lived in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
b. The average brain size of Homo ergaster was 600 cc.
c. The large variation seen in the brain size of Homo ergaster may be indicative of
sexual dimorphism.
d. Homo ergaster was taller than modern humans.
Evidence for reciprocal altruism
a. is absent among primates because they cannot recognize kin.
b. is absent among primates because they do not have long-term memories.
c. exists among primates because they often live in stable social groups.
d. exists among primates because of their longevity.
The character of “behavioral flexibility” evolved in the soapberry bug because it
a. affected reproductive success.
b. occurs only in stable environments.
c. was not passed down from father to son.
d. made behaviorally flexible males stronger.
Evidence that the robust australopithecines ate hard foods includes
a. the browridge.
b. the nuchal crest.
c. flared zygomatics.
d. a small brain.
Human groups from different regions around the world
a. do not vary in terms of genetic diseases.
b. all have much the same genetic diseases.
c. vary in terms of genetic diseases.
d. both a and b.
Australopithecus africanus is most similar to which of the following species?
a. Australopithecus afarensis
b. Australopithecus boisei
c. Ardipithecus ramidus
d. Sahelanthropus tchadensis
Which of the following hypotheses does not explain ape brain size well?
a. The arboreal hypothesis
b. The social intelligence hypothesis
c. The ecological hypothesis
d. The executive brain hypothesis
Some mammals give birth to one offspring at a time, and others to larger litters. Since
more offspring per birth could mean higher reproductive success, why doesn”t natural
selection favor large litters in all mammals?
a. Natural selection does this; most mammals will eventually evolve the ability to have
multiple offspring per litter.
b. The number of offspring per litter has no effect on reproductive success because in
most cases only one survives anyway.
c. Reproducing involves a number of trade-offs, including quantity (number) versus
quality of offspring. Larger litters mean lower-quality individual offspring.
d. It is not possible to change the number of offspring per litter in mammals; all
mammals have about the same number of offspring.
Middle Stone Age (MSA) behavior may not have been as primitive as some
anthropologists posit. Which of the following evidence supports this statement?
a. Anthropologists have found shell beads colored with ocher.
b. Anthropologists have found that MSA people did not transport materials over long
distances.
c. Anthropologists have found that the only tools MSA people used were microliths.
d. Anthropologists have found that MSA people did not process tools before they
manufactured them.
Contemporary foragers
a. have food sharing and a sexual division of labor.
b. have permanent settlements.
c. raise domestic livestock.
d. live in large groups of over 100 adults, most of the time.
Experimental analysis of bone tools from South Africa suggests that they were used to
a. dig up plant roots and tubers.
b. extract termites from their mounds.
c. dig up tree roots.
d. bury carcasses.
In the phylogeny of evolutionary relationships among the primates, tarsiers
a. may be more closely related to anthropoids than to lemurs and lorises.
b. are small-bodied like most anthropoids.
c. may be more closely related to strepsirrhines because they are nocturnal.
d. are considered arboreal quadrupeds like most New World monkeys.
Associative learning
a. does not require understanding conceptual categories like dominance hierarchies.
b. requires theory of mind.
c. involves knowing the mental states of others.
d. is a level of learning that all animals possess.
Freud argued that we each have a biological desire to mate with our parents but that
cultural taboos stop us from doing so. Argue that Freud was wrong.
How do active metabolism, growth rate, and reproductive effort affect basal
metabolism?
Explain how food sharing reduces the risk associated with hunting in contemporary
foragers.
What is the evidence demonstrating the importance of socializing for female primates?
Consider a homologous pair of chromosomes with the genotype Aa at one locus and the
genotype Bb at another locus. After undergoing meiosis, what are all of the possible
genotypes of the gametes produced?
Discuss the evidence supporting incest avoidance in nonhuman primates. Please give
examples.
What is the evidence that early hominins ate meat?
Using the information from the chapter on how ecology shapes behavior, create a model
showing how certain ecological pressures might have favored sociality in primates.
Explain why coalitional behavior may require sophisticated cognitive abilities.
What are the two main theories about the origin of modern humans?
Describe the differences between men and women with regard to the preferred ages of
prospective partners.
Can tools be used to track the evolution of cultural and/or behavioral complexity in the
Upper Paleolithic? If so, how?
Which aspects of Kipsigis bridewealth payments are consistent with evolutionary
reasoning, and which are not?
Why is there variation between human populations in the ability to digest lactose? How
has natural selection affected and maintained this variation?
What is group selection? Why do evolutionary biologists believe that individual
selection will be more powerful than group selection when the two are in conflict?
Give a hypothetical example of allopatric speciation.
What is convergent evolution? Using examples from your text, explain why convergent
evolution provides evidence that complex adaptations do not occur by random chance
alone.
What is the neocortex ratio? Explain how data on the neocortex ratio of primate species
have been used to address hypotheses accounting for the evolution of primate
intelligence.
How can small population size affect gene frequencies? When is fixation reached?