One 1. strategy for genetically engineering insect pests to reduce disease transmission
is to use under dominance to drive genes into the pest population. One aspect of this
strategy is deciding what kind of release to use. A release can be high level (number of
individuals released roughly equal to natural population size), or low level (number of
individuals released a small fraction oaf natural population size). Which of the following
release strategies is most appropriate for this strategy?.
A. A single low-level a are ease
B. Many low-level releases over a number of years
C. A single a high-levels release
D. Many high-level releases over a number of years
2. As we saw in class, all living humans trace their maternal ancestry back to a single
common maternal ancestor termed "Maternal Eve". What this means is that if we trace
your mother back to her mother (your grandmother) and back to your grand mother's
mother, then to her mother, etc., you will eventually trace back to the Mitochondrial Eve.
This is because mitochondrial DNA is inherited maternally. Similarly, because the Y
chromosome is inherited paternally, the Y chromosome can be traced back to a "Ychromosome Adam". If you trace your paternal ancestry from your dada, back through
his dad,a through his dad, and so on, eventually you will trace back to the Ychromosome Adam.
Now think about autosomal gene inheritance. One can in theory trace inheritance of
of an autosomal gene just like one traces inheritance of mitochondrial DNA or the Y
chromosome. One traces back at through the parent you inherited one copy of the
gene from, then back through the parent (your grandparent) he/she inherited it from and
so on. If this is done for a large number of individuals, the gene will trace back to a
single ancestor whom we might call the "gene ancestor".
Based on this information, which of the following statements is/are true?
. A. The path of inheritance an of autosomal gene necessarily goes through either
Mitochondrial Eve or Y-chromosome Adam
.
B. The path of inheritance of an autosomal gene necessarily goes through both
Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam.
C. The path of inheritance of an autosomal gene does not necessarily go through
either Mitochondrial Eve or Y-chromosome Adam.
D. The gene ancestor may have lived before either Mitochondrial Eve or Ychromosome Adam.
3. Suppose you have the following sequences for a gene sampled from several
different populations/species (the successive nucleotide positions represent variable
sites in humans/Neandertaloids that are not necessarily contiguous):
Europeans:
actgttgcc
Africans:
gcagtagc
Neandertal:
gcagtcgc
Which of the following statements is/are reasonable explanation(s) for this data?
A. This gene was introduced into African populations by interbreeding with
Neandertals prior to human migration out of Africa.
B. This gene was introduced into African populations by interbreeding with
Neandertals after human migration out of Africa.
C. This gene is under very strong purifying selection in most lineages, but has
undergone substantial positive selection in Europeans.
D. This gene is under very strong purifying selection in most lineages, but there is a
much higher mutation rate in the European lineage than in the African and
Neandertal lineages
4. The following appears to be a likely phylogeny for hominids and related primates:
gorilla
gorilla
chimp
human
Australopithecus sp.
2
Orrorin
1
Based on this phylogeny and your information given in class about the evolution of
bipedalism, perform an ancestral state reconstruction of quadrupedalism/bipedalism
and then choose which of the following statements is correct?
A.. Bipedalism characterizes node 1
B. The state at node 1 is ambiguous with respect to bipedalism
C. Bipedalism evolved between node 1 and node 2
D. The state at node 2 is ambiguous with respect to bipedalism