©FYNDALY 2024/2025 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2:11PM. A+
BIOL 2600 – Midterm Exam Questions And
Answers| Already Graded A+| Latest Update.
Why is evolution important? - Answer✔- diversity of life
- artificial selection
- pathogens/ health (natural selection)
why is losing a branch vs losing a tree more important? - Answer✔- losing a tree is more
important since there is a larger population size, and it is one of the more recent ancestors to
all of the past ancestors which need to be protected
- if these animals were lost, pieces of history would be lost too
- if you only lost a branch there is less population, and they have already created common
ancestors with a part of their DNA in them
Redi's experiment 1668 - Answer✔- showed that spontaneous generation (of life) was not how
things worked
- early example of empirical hypothesis testing using controls
- experiment where meat was left in jars, some open, some un-opened, the meat that was
unopened flies and maggots could not get in
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck - Answer✔This man developed the first cohesive theory of evolution
after his studies of biology
- thought that shorebirds would want to stretch their legs to stay out of the mud
- thought that these traits would be a result of evolution
- doesn't work like this
what are the five major developments that preceded darwins "on the origin of species" -
Answer✔1. explanations moved from supernatural to methodological naturalism
2. from catastrophism to uniformitarianism
1
, ©FYNDALY 2024/2025 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2:11PM. A+
3. from logic and pure reason to observation, testing, and refutation
4. from unchanging world to a world in flux
5. away from the idea of spontaneous generation to the idea that species come from other
closely related species
Darwin's two fundamental insights - Answer✔1. natural selection: nature selects the most
successful variants
2. ancestry: all species descended from one or a few common ancestors: new species arise from
pre-existing species
two concepts noted by both charles darwin and alfred wallace - Answer✔1. living species tend
to be most similar to other species that geographically nearby
2. species in the fossil record tend to be most similar to other species that lived around the
same time
evolutionary biology - Answer✔the study of the origin, maintenance and diversity of life on
earth over approximately the past 3.5 billion years
artificial selection - Answer✔human-directed selective breeding
neutral mutations - Answer✔genetic changes that have no effect on fitness
Catatrophism - Answer✔earths major geological features arose through sudden cataclysmic,
large-scale events, rather than through slow gradual change.
also posited that these cataclysmic events often involve different forces that those that are
currently operating
spontaneous generation - Answer✔the idea that complex life-forms arise repeatedly, without
external stimuli, from nonliving matter, and heterogenesis
heterogenesis - Answer✔the idea that parents of one species could produce offspring of a
different species
populations - Answer✔groups of individuals that belong to the same species and live in the
same area
phenotypic plasticity - Answer✔the ability of individual genotypes to produce different
phenotypes when exposed to different environmental conditions
differential reproductive success - Answer✔some individuals leave more offspring in the next
generation than others do, often due to advantages in survival or reproduction
2
BIOL 2600 – Midterm Exam Questions And
Answers| Already Graded A+| Latest Update.
Why is evolution important? - Answer✔- diversity of life
- artificial selection
- pathogens/ health (natural selection)
why is losing a branch vs losing a tree more important? - Answer✔- losing a tree is more
important since there is a larger population size, and it is one of the more recent ancestors to
all of the past ancestors which need to be protected
- if these animals were lost, pieces of history would be lost too
- if you only lost a branch there is less population, and they have already created common
ancestors with a part of their DNA in them
Redi's experiment 1668 - Answer✔- showed that spontaneous generation (of life) was not how
things worked
- early example of empirical hypothesis testing using controls
- experiment where meat was left in jars, some open, some un-opened, the meat that was
unopened flies and maggots could not get in
Jean-Baptiste Lamarck - Answer✔This man developed the first cohesive theory of evolution
after his studies of biology
- thought that shorebirds would want to stretch their legs to stay out of the mud
- thought that these traits would be a result of evolution
- doesn't work like this
what are the five major developments that preceded darwins "on the origin of species" -
Answer✔1. explanations moved from supernatural to methodological naturalism
2. from catastrophism to uniformitarianism
1
, ©FYNDALY 2024/2025 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2:11PM. A+
3. from logic and pure reason to observation, testing, and refutation
4. from unchanging world to a world in flux
5. away from the idea of spontaneous generation to the idea that species come from other
closely related species
Darwin's two fundamental insights - Answer✔1. natural selection: nature selects the most
successful variants
2. ancestry: all species descended from one or a few common ancestors: new species arise from
pre-existing species
two concepts noted by both charles darwin and alfred wallace - Answer✔1. living species tend
to be most similar to other species that geographically nearby
2. species in the fossil record tend to be most similar to other species that lived around the
same time
evolutionary biology - Answer✔the study of the origin, maintenance and diversity of life on
earth over approximately the past 3.5 billion years
artificial selection - Answer✔human-directed selective breeding
neutral mutations - Answer✔genetic changes that have no effect on fitness
Catatrophism - Answer✔earths major geological features arose through sudden cataclysmic,
large-scale events, rather than through slow gradual change.
also posited that these cataclysmic events often involve different forces that those that are
currently operating
spontaneous generation - Answer✔the idea that complex life-forms arise repeatedly, without
external stimuli, from nonliving matter, and heterogenesis
heterogenesis - Answer✔the idea that parents of one species could produce offspring of a
different species
populations - Answer✔groups of individuals that belong to the same species and live in the
same area
phenotypic plasticity - Answer✔the ability of individual genotypes to produce different
phenotypes when exposed to different environmental conditions
differential reproductive success - Answer✔some individuals leave more offspring in the next
generation than others do, often due to advantages in survival or reproduction
2
