EVOLUTION
• Explain the two forces that drive microevolution: adaptation and overproduction of offspring.
• List two pieces of evidence that Darwin used to develop his theory of evolution by natural selection.
• Explain the link between natural selection and reproductive success.
• List the 5 conditions required for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. For each, give an example of how a real population would not meet that condition.
• Compare and contrast directional, stabilizing, and disruptive selection.
• Explain how natural selection can maintain harmful alleles in a population.
• Explain how sexual selection can promote traits that decrease fitness.
• Compare and contrast how mutation, genetic drift, non-random mating, and gene flow contribute to evolution.
• How can natural selection favor different phenotypes at different times?
• Explain why hard body parts are more likely to appear in the fossil record.
• Describe two ways that the age of a fossil can be determined.
• Explain how biogeography can be used to explain the evolution of a species.
• Compare and contrast homologous, analogous, and vestigial structures. This would include giving an example of each.
• Explain how embryonic development can be used to identify evolutionary relationships.
• Describe how DNA sequences can reveal evolutionary relatedness.
• Explain what is meant by a molecular clock.
• Describe the forces that lead to the evolution of new species.
• Compare and contrast microevolution and macroevolution.
• Define a biological species.
• Compare and contrast several forms of pre-zygotic and post-zygotic barriers to reproduction (3 of each)
• Compare and contrast allopatric, sympatric, and parapatric speciation.
• Compare and contrast gradualism and punctuated equilibrium. Give an example of how the fossil record exhibits both.
• Describe three mechanisms of adaptive radiation.
• Identify factors that can affect the extinction rate of species.
• What is the advantage of a cladistics approach over a more traditional approach to phylogeny?
• Summarize the evidence for the origin of life on Earth.
• Describe how conditions on the early Earth could contribute to the production of biological molecules.
• Explain why RNA may have been the first form of genetic material.
• Describe how endosymbiosis contributed to the evolution of eukaryotes.
• Describe the evidence for human evolution.
• Describe the evidence supporting the Out of Africa model of human dispersal.