Evolutionary Concepts Quiz

There is a population of beetles found in a specific deciduous forest. A few of these beetles end up in a different deciduous forest and are able to reproduce. This causes the frequencies of alleles to change. A situation like this, when allele frequencies change due to the migration of a small subgroup of a population, is the: - ______

The relatively rapid evolution of a single species into a number of distinct but closely related species filling a variety of formerly empty ecological niches is known as - ______

Which type of selection favors individual variations at opposite extremes of a trait over individuals with intermediate variations? - ______ selection

When two or more species that are distantly related develop increasingly similar phenotypes - ______

Over time, scientists have noticed that babies that are born at an intermediate weight are more likely to survive than babies born either much smaller or much larger than average. This phenomena can be shown in a graph depicting - ______ selection

In North America, there lives a gliding rodent (the flying squirrel). In Australia, there lives a gliding marsupial (the sugar glider), both evolved comparable adaptations due to similar selective pressures in their environments. This is an example of… - ______ evolution

The driving force of evolution is - the action of natural selection upon ______

Random change in allele frequency caused by a series of chance occurrences that cause an allele to become more or less common in a population is - ______

Genetic drift is likely to be seen in a population: - ______

Different species develop due to populations being divided by a barrier such as the formation of river or mountains - ______

When a single species evolves into a number of distinct but closely related species - ______

Two very similar species, the Northern Spotted Owl and Mexican Spotted Owl are separated by the Rocky Mountains. The formation of these two different species is an example of: ______