Macroevolution

Question 1

What do theories say about evolution and complexity

Answer 1

Maynard Smith and Szathmary:

• Increase in complexity through small number of major transitions
• Change in transfer of genetic information
• Change in organisation of biological systems

Question 2

What are characteristics of major transitions?

Answer 2

• Entities that were capable of independent replication before the transition now only replicate as part of a larger whole
• Division of labour
• New ways of transmitting information

Question 3

What is symbiosis?

Answer 3

Bringing together the genetic content of two organisms

Question 4

What is the fallacy of progress?

Answer 4

• Evolution doesn’t necessarily lead to higher complexity
• An improvement in immediate fitness may be achieved by losing body parts
• Gould: apparent increase in complexity is due to focus on the extreme

Question 5

Why is RNA important for macroevolution?

Answer 5

• Replicates
• Stores genetic information
• Transmits information
• Duplicates information
• Can have enzymatic activity

Question 6

What are advantages of cellular life?

Answer 6

• Can control internal environment
• Localisation of metabolites
• Localisation of genes

Question 7

What are disadvantages of cellular life

Answer 7

• Cell division

- Transmembrane transport

Question 8

How have eukaryotic cells evolved?

Answer 8

• Lost outer cell wall
• Gained organelles
• Gained intracellular membranes
• Organised its genome
• Gained introns

Question 9

How has multicellularity evolved?

Answer 9

• Evolved many times
• Cellular speciation
• Complex development
• Coordination among cells

Question 10

What are body plans?

Answer 10

The overall layout of an organism’s body

Question 11

What did plants and animals require when they colonised the land?

Answer 11

STAR

• Structural support
• Transport of materials within organism
• Ability to reproduce on land
• Resistance to drying out

Question 12

How have intelligence, language and culture developed?

Answer 12

• Improvement in general cognitive ability
• Increase in brain size
• Anatomical changes to enable speech
• Improvement in grammatical competence

Question 13

What is the Baldwin effect?

Answer 13

A biological trait becomes innate as a result of first being learned