University of Washington

BIOLOGY 180

Practice Exam 3 (May 2019)
Beetles
a. Where did the ancestor at the root of the phylogeny live? Illustrate two different
hypotheses. For each scenario mark all lineages that moved to a new location.
a. Common ancestor is Africa because following lineages stem from A (rooted
in Africa)
b. A simpler tree is likely to be correct, because of parsimony.
i. Parsimony: having the least amount of changes in a monophyletic
group
B. Briefly explain why phylogenies based on antenna shape turned out to be misleading
a. Convergent evolution (homoplasy) explains how the trait of antenna shape
different among species in differing monophyletic groups
C. Adaptive Radiation
a. Rapid, short term speciation occurred, fueled by genetic isolation, is
happening because ant-nest beetles in Madagascar descended from a
common ancestor in a short period of time
D. Why would a biologist characterize the relationship of the ant-nest beetles to the ants in
whose nests the beetles live?
a. Predation
2. Developed country has low birth rate and low death rate
a. Suggest a hypothesis: The United States over has access to healthcare and
education, lowering birth and death rates
3. Creating graph: (Years (time) on x, population on Y)
a. R is continuous data
b. N0 = initial; Nt = final; lne^r = r
c. Cannot have negative n