4.5: Review Questions

• Summarize the Modern Synthesis and provide several examples of how it is relevant to questions and problems in our world today.
• You inherit a house from a long-lost relative that contains a fancy aquarium, filled with a variety of snails. The phenotypes include large snails and small snails; red, black, and yellow snails; and solid, striped, and spotted snails. Devise a series of experiments that would help you determine how many snail species are present in your aquarium.
• Match the correct force of evolution with the correct real-world example:
  a. Mutationi. 5-alpha reductase deficiency
  b. Genetic Driftii. Peppered Moths
  c. Gene Flowiii. Neurofibromatosis Type 1
  d. Natural Selectioniv. Scutellata Honey Bees
• Imagine a population of common house mice (Mus musculus). Draw a comic strip illustrating how mutation, genetic drift, gene flow, and natural selection might transform this population over several (or more) generations.
• The many breeds of the single species of domestic dog (Canisfamiliaris) provide an extreme example of microevolution. Discuss why this is the case. What future scenarios can you imagine that could potentially transform the domestic dog into an example of macroevolution?
• The ability to roll one’s tongue (lift the outer edges of the tongue to touch each other, forming a tube) is a dominant trait. In a small town of 1,500 people, 500 can roll their tongues. Use the Hardy-Weinberg formula to determine how many individuals in the town are homozygous dominant, heterozygous, and homozygous recessive.