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Biology Essay Questions

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10/11/15

1. Directional selection occurs when one of the extreme traits of distribution is eliminated and causing a shift in the frequency. For example, the beak length of finches changed due to the food sources that were available. The finches with larger beaks survived because they were able to crack seeds that they could eat. As time went on, insects became plentiful and now finches with smaller beaks were now favored by the directional selection. Disruptive selection occurs when the average phenotype is selected against. For example, in a population of white, grey, and black rabbits if the grey rabbit dies the white and black rabbits become concentrated. 2. Populations of bacteria evolve to become resistant to antibiotics through the process of natural selection. When a population of bacteria gets exposed to any give antibiotic, most of the bacteria will die. However, if some bacteria cells have resistance due to plasmids, they will survive. They will then pass this trait to their offspring, which will be a fully resistant generation. 3. Tooth reduction is one of the major evolutionary trends that developed among major vertebrate groups that allowed for the transition from aquatic to terrestrial life. Evolution of limbs and being able to breath air are other evolutionary trends that took place. 4. The nonvascular plants and even a few vascular plants like ferns reproduce by having the sperm swim through the external environment. This swimming requires a water film in the external environment, and also requires that the ovum be in a structure close enough to the ground that the sperm can swim to it. Gymnosperms and angiosperms make pollen. Sperm are confined within a pollen grain. So no swimming is required. Wind and animal pollination/dispersal has helped plants a lot. If a plant lives in the water and let a bunch of its gametes

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