Question

1. Which of the following is FALSE about Wallace's line?

   	A.	It marks the boundary between the Oriental biota and a transitional zone that is a mixture of Oriental and Australian biota.
   	B.	It marks a deep sea trench that existed during the lowest stands of sea level.
   	C.	It is named after "The Father of Biogeography".
   	D.	It is named after the person who suggested that reinforcement could complete speciation.
   	E.	Choose this answer if you think that all of the above are true.

QUESTION 2

1. Which of the following is FALSE about the Cambrian Explosion?

   	A.	Fossils of this time period are found in Canada and China that date to ~540 Mya.
   	B.	It is extremely well preserved because fine grained sediments buried soft bodies organisms in a deep anoxic, sulfur-free layer.
   	C.	All fossils could be placed in modern animal phyla.
   	D.	It contains representatives of most modern animal phyla including chordates.
   	E.	Some fossil taxa were common but most were quite rare.

QUESTION 3

1. Gymnosperms are missing which one of the following 5 major innovations in the evolution of plants?

   	A.	multicellularity
   	B.	spores
   	C.	vessels
   	D.	seeds
   	E.	flowers

1 points   

QUESTION 4

1. Which of the following is TRUE about fish?

   	A.	Lungfish and coelocanths branched so close to each other and the tetrapods that it is difficult to tell which split first.
   	B.	Lungfish existed in the fossil record but are extinct today.
   	C.	Coelocanths existed in the fossil record but are extinct today.
   	D.	Fossil lungfish and fossil coelocanths are found in the early Cambrian.
   	E.	Bony fish are the sister group to Coelocanths + Lungfish but not Tetrapods.

QUESTION 5

1. Which of the following statements about turtles is FALSE?

   	A.	Their evolutionary relationships have been controversial.
   	B.	Early fossils were found in the Triassic w/ incompletely formed shells.
   	C.	Ribs and backbone are fused to the upper shell.
   	D.	Nuclear genomic and mtDNA data place them as the sister group to crocodiles + birds.
   	E.	Morphology places them as the sister group to crocodiles.

Answer 1

Ans 1 It is named after the person who suggested that reinforcement could complete speciation.

The modern concept of reinforcement originates from Theodosius Dobzhansky

Ans 2 It is extremely well preserved because fine grained sediments buried soft bodies organisms in a deep anoxic, sulfur-free layer.

Fossils of organisms' bodies are usually the most informative type of evidence. Fossilization is a rare event, and most fossils are destroyed by erosion or metamorphism before they can be observed.

Ans 3 Flowers

Since they have no flowers or fruits, their seeds have no protective covering. So they are called gymnosperms, which means naked seeds. They are called this because their seeds are open to the air with no covering such as the seeds of flowering plants.

Ans 4. Bony fish are the sister group to Coelocanths + Lungfish but not Tetrapods

Ans 5 E.Morphology places them as the sister group to crocodiles.

The resulting tree showed that turtles are the sister group to a monophyletic cluster of archosaurs (birds and crocodiles). All other possible tree topologies were significantly rejected.