Unit 3 Learning Goals & Outcomes

21. What is biological evolution?

A. Differentiate between different sources of diversity among individuals in a population, including
heritable variation and environmentally-induced variation due to phenotypic plasticity.
B. Identify variation that is of evolutionary significance
C. Define biological evolution with respect to allele frequencies

22. Understand the intimate relationship between populations and genetic diversity
A. Calculate allele frequencies given genotype frequencies or number of individuals with each
genotype
B. Explain (in your own words) the predictions of the Hardy-Weinberg (HW) Principle.
C. List and restate (in your own words) the five assumptions/conditions of the Hardy-Weinberg
principle, and know under which conditions it is OK to make these assumptions, or why you are
testing for violations of these assumptions.
D. Predict allele and genotype frequencies of rare genetic disorders in a population from
phenotypic data alone, ASSUMING that the population is in Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium, and
understand the limitations of your estimates.
E. Calculate the expected frequencies of offspring of particular genotypes or phenotypes expected
in the next generation if the population is in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium given allele or
genotype frequencies in the current generation
F. Be able to apply the Hardy–Weinberg equation to estimate the frequencies of carriers in a
population, assuming alleles of the gene in question is in Hardy–Weinberg Equilibrium
G. Understand in what sense the Hardy-Weinberg equation represents the prediction of the null
hypothesis of biological evolution.
H. Determine whether or not a population is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium using the Chi-Square
statistic to compare expected and observed genotype frequencies of a population, and explain
the biological implications of either rejecting or failing to reject the null hypothesis based on
your results.

23. What causes genotype frequencies not to be in HW equilibrium in a population?

A. List the four processes that change allele frequencies and the five that change genotype
frequencies in populations through time.
B. Restate (in your own words) what it means for an allele to be fixed in a population or lost from
a population.
C. Relate allele fixation to genetic diversity (e.g., what is the effect of fixation on genetic
diversity?).
D. Identify processes that can cause alleles to be fixed or lost and re-introduced.
E. Describe the concept of “random sampling of alleles” in genetic drift making specific reference
to the parental gene pool and offspring genotypes.
F. Understand how genetic drift can cause alleles to become more or less common or fixed in
populations
G. Predict the relative effects of genetic drift in large vs. small populations and predict the relative
time to allele fixation for large vs. small populations undergoing drift.
H. Compare and contrast the causes and consequences of the “founder effect” and population
bottlenecks.
I. Define gene flow and relate it to migration between populations
 J. Explain how gene flow influences effective population size, allele frequencies, and genetic
divergence between populations living in different regions.
K. Understand how non-random mating can influence genotype frequencies, and be able to
illustrate graphically why non-random mating alone will not change allele frequencies
L. Predict how inbreeding will change genotype frequencies, and be able to graphically illustrate
why non-random mating will not by itself change allele frequencies.
M. Justify why inbreeding does not cause evolution directly, yet can speed the rate of
evolutionary change.
N. Justify why ALL natural populations will evolve, making reference to assumptions made under
the Hardy-Weinberg Principle.

24. How do biotic and abiotic interactions lead to adaptations?

A. List the four postulates of natural selection
B. Discuss the consequences of differential survival and reproduction for variation in a population.
(Why is “Survival of the fittest” not capturing the whole story?)
C. Compare and relate the roles of reproduction and survival in natural selection.
D. Identify sexual selection as a sub-category of natural selection that increases reproductive
success through mate acquisition.
E. Define fitness in the context of natural selection.
F. Identify that evolution by natural selection results directly from intraspecific competition
between individuals of different genotypes.
G. Explain why natural selection does not result in evolution of a trait because a population
“needed it”, but can only operate on pre-existing variation in the population.
H. Defend the statement that selection is reactive, and not a directed process with foresight.
I. Justify why traits/behaviors for the "good of the species" (but at the cost of an individual's
fitness) would not be favored by natural selection.

25. How does natural selection cause non-random changes in allele frequencies in a population?
A. Predict how biotic and abiotic selection pressures result in changes of allele frequencies in a
genetically diverse population.
B. Discuss the causes of heritable variation and the consequences of differential survival and
reproduction for variation in a population.
C. Justify why mutation is a random process to introduce alleles, but evolution by natural
selection is a nonrandom process that can alter allele frequencies in a population.
D. Compare and contrast expected changes in allele frequency in a population depending on if
that allele is under selection vs. experiencing drift.
E. Compare and contrast different modes of natural selection and relate them to differences in
fitness of phenotypes and resulting changes in allele frequencies: (Directional, Stabilizing,
Disruptive Selection)
F. Explain multiple ways in which a deleterious allele can persist in a population.
26. How do new species arise?
A. Define a biological species
B. Define reproductive isolation and relate it to gene flow among populations
C. Explain why gene flow makes speciation by reproductive isolation less likely
D. Compare and contrast forms of pre-zygotic and post-zygotic reproductive isolation and be
able to give examples of each.
E. Contrast allopatric and sympatric speciation.
F. Define the concept of “divergence” with respect to two recently isolated populations
G. Be able to identify how genetic drift and different modes of natural selection can enhance
divergence between recently isolated populations.
H. Identify why disruptive selection is a conducive mechanism to result in sympatric speciation.
I. Explain how secondary traits (such as sexually selected traits) that lead to increased
reproductive isolation can increase fitness of individuals among sympatrically diverging
populations.

27. How can we infer evolutionary relatedness using cladistics?

A. Define nodes and branches
B. Explain how we can use traits/characters to group related organisms
C. Define a clade and know that clades are nested groupings of organisms, clade within clade,
that group organisms by ever more distant common ancestors.
D. Compare and contrast shared derived traits and shared ancestral traits, and know which is
used to define a clade
E. Understand that any character that is a shared derived character for one clade, can be a
shared ancestral character for another clade.
F. Contrast Monophyletic, Paraphyletic, Polyphyletic groupings
G. Be able to use a set of characters for different species to create a cladogram, using the
principle of maximum parsimony.
H. Contrast homologous versus analogous characters, be able to give examples.
I. Be able to identify a character as homologous versus analogous when presented with a
cladogram of a lineage that displays these characters.
J. Explain how convergent evolution can result in analogous traits
K. Understand how DNA sequences can be used as characters in cladistic analysis.
L. Explain the basic assumptions made in cladistic analyses, what errors can occur, what causes
these errors in inferring evolutionary relationships to occur, and how to guard against errors in
constructing phylogenies/cladograms.

28. Why do we need information from the fossil record to understand our own anatomy?
A. Contrast proximate versus ultimate explanations.
B. Highlight the main evolutionary changes associated with the origin of tetrapods, and tetrapod
limbs in particular.
C. Define "pre-adaptations".
D. Contrast the selective pressures that tetrapod limbs originally evolved under, with what they
were later co-opted for in terrestrial tetrapod lineages.
E. Explain why we essentially never see the appearance of a brand-new structure “from scratch”,
but rather tinkering with pre-existing structures that can be co-opted for new functions.
F. Reconstruct basic developmental organization of a common ancestor, given information about
shared regulatory genes among members of descendant species.
29. Ultimate anatomical explanations: How did the vertebrate heart evolve?
A. Compare and contrast the general outline of the mammalian/avian circulatory system with that
in fish, lungfish, and amphibians.
B. Be able to generate hypotheses regarding the evolutionary origin of anatomical structures given
information on the phylogenetic relationships between lineages.
C. Be able to use the following terms in context: derived structures, analogous structures, shared
ancestral structures, phylogenetic constraint