study questions exam 2

Each island had different beak structures because the birds that were able to reproduce and pass on their genes were the ones who were able to find a food source to survive. Each island had different sources of nutrients, such as nuts and insects? The birds that were able to crack open nuts on an island with a primary nutritional source of hard shelled nuts were the finches that survived. Each island was isolated, and over time without migration to vary the genetic traits in the population, the birds would pass on the traits necessary to survive.

This does not describe evolution, evolution is the genetic inheritance passed on from the parents generation to offspring. This scenario describes classical conditioning. If this hunting intelligence trait was passed on from previous generations to enhance survival and reproduction, then yes, it was evolution.  Evolution occurs in a population, and the means is by natural selection.

Bacteria reproduce very quickly, as they reproduce asexually. The multiple generations allows more mutations to occur over a shorter amount of time than other organisms. When we use antibiotics, it kills all non-resistant bacteria leaving only the resistant to reproduce and form a colony of resistant bacteria.

Natural selection occurs when only the reproductively fittest organism survives to reproduce due to limitation and the competition of nutrition, and space. This could include predator vs. prey, mutual relationships, antagonist, and parasitic all competing over food and area.
Artificial selection occurs when humans use intelligence to select organisms with desired traits, and breed one organism with another to produce the desired traits, such as breeding animals and crops.

If there are any Bt resistant pests in the field, and GM corn is the only crop, the resistant pests will be the only ones to survive and reproduce leaving no non-resistant insects to reproduce. When parts of the field are left conventional, it allows non-resistant pest to survive. Their dominant traits when breed with recessive resistant traits will produce offspring of non-resistant pests. That way the GM corn will still be effective the following year and years to come. 

Plants that humans selected the ?best? seed from, based on the traits that would be advantageous to their needs. These crops have genetic diversity due the differing preference of other seed gatherers. Over time, these plants became very distinct and more uniform.

Wild-lots of diversity, reproduce- seed spread by wind, animals?
Land race- diversity due to the gathers preferences, reproduces by artificial selection.
Cultivar- Genetically uniform crops, very low variance in the U.S. narrowed down to ~24 species that feed the world.
As plants go from wild to land races to cultivars traits become more uniform which means less diverse and more suitable for human use than for reproductive fittness of the plant.

You must first identify a trait of interest.
Locate the plant population varying the trait of interest.
Control the mating
Select the progeny of interest
The time needed to for plants to produce seed and reproduce can take months; it may take several generations to achieve the desired phenotype.

A hybrid is an organism that contains the genes of two unrelated inbred parents. Which causes the less vigorous inbred genes to produce a vigorous offspring when bred with another inbred parent. One that is homozygous and another heterozygous and breed them to produce their hybrid offspring.

Grain yield
Stalk strength
Root strength
Stay green
Drought tolerance
Plant height
Seed size
Resistance to several diseases
herbicide and pesticide resistance

The large variance of genotypes are expressed in many different phenotypes of potato plants, such as different skin coloring

At least one parent plant is homozygous dominant plant, the other plant can be heterozygous dominant or homozygous dominant. If they were both heterozygous, there is a 25% possibility that one plant would produce offspring with the recessive phenotype. They could also both have homogeneous recessive genotypes expressing only recessive phenotypes.   

Central dogma is the process of DNA transcription to translation; genes are expressed to produce proteins that form the various traits

DNA is a double stranded helix when uncoiled resembles a ladder. It has a sugar phosphorous skeleton and nitrogenous bases that make the rungs of the ladder. Adenine has a weak hydrogen bond with Thymine, Guanine with Cytosine. DNA that makes up chromosomes starts uncoiling when the enzyme helicase initiates it. DNA?s complimentary bases split and expose the DNA template. RNA polymerase an enzyme starts building RNA off the DNA template. The promoter is attached, which signals the gene to start. mRNA, which contains the codons necessary for translation, leaves the nucleus. The mRNA goes to the ribosome, which is translated when the codons and anticodons attach to form amino acids. The amino acid chains produced are folded up to form protein. DNA replication is semi-conservative.  Each new DNA molecule is composed of one strand from the parent molecule that serves as the template for one newly- constructed strand.

Molecular process that gives rise of variation when there is an error in DNA replication, or when a cell is exposed to a mutagen.

Single nucleotide polymorphism

Correlations between harmful predispositions and genes

Identify desired trait(s), locate trait in a population, control-mating processes, select progeny that shows trait.
Greenhouse trials, field trials, multiple locations and years, collecting all that data

Because wild relatives have large variance in the gene pool, not as susceptible to pathogens, pests, wild relatives express the most common dominate traits so you could pick from the group to start breeding the plants. 

Time consuming, not uniform for harvesting. The crop is not as appealing to consumers or distributors.