Chapter 22, Problem 11
Suppose you were a conservation biologist working to preserve two populations of monkeys. The first population has 5000 individuals, while the second population has 50,000 individuals. Which population do you expect to have higher genetic diversity? Consider which evolutionary process(es) may be different between these populations. Justify your response.
Video transcript
Melissa Kemp is a conservation paleobiologist who studies how biodiversity has changed (and is changing) over time by integrating paleontology and genetics. She has studied how lizards in the Caribbean have evolved in response to changing ecological factors, including climate change. In one of her studies, Kemp identified that larger lizards were less likely to survive than smaller lizards. (1) Propose a hypothesis for what evolutionary mechanism could lead to this observation. (2) How could anthropogenic climate change potentially accelerate these evolutionary changes?
Draw a small concept map showing how selection, genetic drift, gene flow, and mutation relate to genetic variation.
In humans, albinism is caused by loss-of-function mutations in genes involved in the synthesis of melanin, the dark pigment in skin. Only people homozygous for a loss-of-function allele (genotype 𝑎𝑎) have albinism. In one study of an American population, individuals with albinism were present at a frequency of about 1 in 10,000 (or 0.0001). Assuming that genotypes are in Hardy–Weinberg Equilibrium, what is the predicted frequency of individuals who are carriers (that is, 𝐴𝑎) for the albinism allele?
Human activities are causing the fragmentation of the Brazilian Atlantic rain forest. One result is that toucans have become extinct or nearly extinct in some of the forest fragments. Does the absence of toucans affect the forest? Toucans disperse seeds of key forest species such as juçara palms by eating the fruit and defecating the seeds in new locations, sometimes more than a kilometer away. If there are no toucans, is the genetic diversity of palms likely to increase or decrease within forest fragments? Why? a. increase (due to increased genetic drift) b. decrease (due to decreased gene flow) c. decrease (due to decreased mutation rate) d. decrease (due to decreased natural selection)
Human activities are causing the fragmentation of the Brazilian Atlantic rain forest. One result is that toucans have become extinct or nearly extinct in some of the forest fragments. Does the absence of toucans affect the forest? Toucans can eat fruits with large seeds because their large bills can open wide. Most other birds in the same forest can only eat small seeds. Ecologist Mauro Galetti and his colleagues measured the seed sizes of palms in forest fragments with and without toucans. The graphs show two of the forest populations they studied. What is the take-home message of the data?