On 10/18/22 I talked through a few study topics in class that Zoom friends didn’t hear well. Here they are in writing:
- Familiarize yourself with important dates, historical figures, and scientific terms from the slides. There’s a small section where you will define some of these in your own words.
- Remember the giant hint I gave in the Western Fisheries Science section – know that main plot/concept – how to interpret it – what it means – and think about practical applications in a real world situation.
- We’ve talked a lot about evolution; it came up in the first quiz. This is an important concept that will only be a very small part of the midterm. To clarify evolution: Evolution is a PROCESS that is a result of natural selection. This is not phenotypic plasticity, which is an important concept to review and understand how it links to evolution and natural selection.
- Dr. Peter Westley, who wrote most of the midterm, loves the Newfoundland cod story.
Quiz questions:
Question 1: Everyone got this!
Question 2: Store food inside body (fat, giant stomach, adjust metabolism to store food rapidly) Store food outside body (caches, carry it around). Follow a resource wave (migrate, movement, go to other places)
Question 3: One: exponential growth. Two: like a J. Three: resource limitations – run out of space, out of food.
Question 4: Full credit for any idea and any way to test it. Ideally I was going for food web dynamics shaping pool ecosystems and/or habitat limitations tested with reciprocal transplant experiment: Put fishes/mollusks in and take fishes/mollusks out of pools with/without fishes/mollusks.
Question 5: In this question I was looking for you to show me that you understood the PROCESS that gives rise to adaptive evolution is natural selection. Although your answers varied, I gave full credit when I saw evidence that you could break down natural selection into its three premises. Note: there is no order, just wanted to see that you had the pieces clear. Specifically, I was looking for language that showed you understood:
Premise1: there is some competition for limited resources.
Premise 2: some individuals have traits that increase their survival and reproduce while others that do not have those traits and do not reproduce (or reproduce at a lower rate of success)
Premise 3: if the traits that convey an advantage have heritable (i.e. genetic) linkages then there will be evolution and adaptation to local conditions.