Virtual Lab 10 - Biodiversity is Everything – Questions

Fill this out and submit on Canvas.

Question 1.
a) What might be some drawbacks to categorizing something based only on what you can
see temporarily with the naked eye?
It could be easy to over or underestimate the diversity of species.
b) What are the benefits of this approach?
Visible features, such as beak shape/size and head structure are easy to point out and distinguish.
c) What traits does Darwin have used to organize his finches (Figure 1 above)?
Systema Natura. He categorized the finches by the birds by beak shape/size, head shape/size,
diet, place of dwelling, etc.
Questions 2. Regard Figure 3 above.
a) What type of animal are you?
Humans are mammals.
b) Who are your closest relatives on the tree?
Reptiles, birds and amphibians are the closest relatives to mammals.
c) What physical traits differentiates the fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals
from the everything else on the tree? (Name at least two, these can be speculative)
Most fish, amphibians, mammals, reptiles, etc. have a backbone or spinal cord, unlike majority
of arachnids, crustaceans, insects etc. that have an exoskeleton or hard outer layer.
Insects, arachnids, crustaceans, etc. are typically much smaller and lighter than reptiles, birds,
mammals, etc.

Question 3. a) Looking at Figure 2a above, to what Domain do the Plantae, Animalia, Fungi,
and Protista then belong?
They belong to the Eukarya Domain.
b) What does this mean about all plants, animals, fungi, algae, and protists (amoebae are protists,
for example)? What do all these organisms have in common?
Their cells have nuclei.
Question 4. a) Looking at Figure 2b above (the tree of life based on DNA/RNA), which domain
contains the most species?
According to the DNA/RNA tree of life, Bacteria contains the most species.

c) According to the DNA/RNA tree of life (Fig. 2b), which of the three domains are most
closely related?
According to the DNA/RNA tree of life, Eukaryotes and Archaea are most closely related.

Question 5. a) What differentiates plants, animals, and fungi? (Hint: Think about the different
sources of energy we learned from Chapter 3 of The Sciences. Also, fungi break down organic
matter and are thus known as ‘decomposers’.)
Plants, animals, and fungi all differ by what they eat in order to obtain energy.
b) Notice the old system (Fig. 7a) lumps the prokaryotes (eubacteria and archaeabacteria) in with
the kingdoms, even though we now know these are their own separate domains. Notice the
tiering however. What is the difference between the plants/animals/fungi and the
protista/eubacteria/archaebacteria? (Hint: Look at the descriptions in Fig. 7a.)
The difference is that plants, animals, and fungi are multicellular organisms, while protista,
eubacteria, and archaebacteria are unicellular organisms.
Question 6. By now hopefully you are learning to read trees of life. Here’s one more puzzle.
a) What kingdom is the same between both the old and the new Kingdom systems?
Between the old and the new Kingdom, the plant kingdom remains the same.
b) To what Kingdom do you belong according to the new system?
According to the new system, humans belong to the Animal Ophisisthokonta Kingdom.
Question 7. Regard Figure 8 above.
a) What is your phylum?
Humans are in the phylum chordata.
b) What is the closest other phylum to your phylum?
Echinodermata is the closest phylum to chordata.
c) Name two invertebrate phyla that live on land and which you might easily see in your
environment:
Worms and insects live on land in our environment.
d) Name a phylum that is bilaterally symmetric like humans are:
Anthropods such as crabs are bilaterally symmetric.
Question 8. a) Complete the chart below documenting which class has which trait. One class
will have all the traits, one class will only have only one trait (e.g. eels don’t have jaws, etc.).
Each class has a unique number of the traits listed so that they make the sequence shown in
Figure 9 above.
Amphibia
Eel Fish Reptile Bird Mammal
n
Spinal chord
X X X   X  X X 
(nerve chord)

Hinged jaws   X X X X X

Lungs   X X X X

Amniotic egg   X X X

Feathers   X X
Hair and
mammary   X
glands
   
Total Traits: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Question 8 b) How would you describe the relationship between the tree in Figure 9 and the
traits listed in your completed Table 1?
As you progress from eel to mammal, more traits are added.

Question 9 a) Going back to Figure 4, to what animal class do cardinals belong? (Use the
Linnean terminology, please):
Cardinals belong to animal class Aves.
b) What is your Linnean name or the binomial nomenclature that describes you?
Homo sapien is the Linnean name for humans.
Question 10. List your organisms below.

  Binomial nomenclature Kingdom Phylum Class

Organism 1
 Melanoplis bivittatus  Anamalia  Arthropoda  Insecta
Organism 2
 Cryptomeria japonica  Plantae  Spermatophyta   Pinopsida
 Organism 3
 Pinus strobus  Plantae Coniferophyta  Pinopsida
  Spermatophyt  Dicotyledona
Organism 4
 Ulmus parvifolia  Plantae a  e

Table 2. List of organisms you observed from your environment. You must observe at least 1x
animals and the rest plants and/or fungi. For plants or fungi you do not need to input phylum and
class.
Question 11. It takes 23 pairs of chromosomes to write out a human being. Surely, we are a
paragon of genetic information! Our genome MUST be the biggest! Answer the following
question using:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_organisms_by_chromosome_count
Make sure you sort by chromosome number to get an ascending or descending list.

a) Name the cutest organism (in your subjective estimation) that also has 46 chromosomes
besides humans:
In my subjective estimation, the sable antelope or Hippotragus niger is the cutest organism with
46 chromosomes.

b) Name the organism that has the fewest chromosomes:

Male jack jumper ants or Myrmecia pilosula have the fewest number of chromosomes (1).

c) What organism has the most chromosomes:

Ciliated protozoa or Oxytricha trifallax have the most chromosomes (1260).

d) Peruse the list. Name an interesting observation you found there: (e.g. a carrot has more
chromosomes than a koala.)
I find it interesting that a mango has 40 chromosomes… only 6 less than humans.
Question 12. The following list compares three species in terms of the specific amino acid
sequence they use to synthesize a given protein. Different variations of amino acids can form the
same proteins so scientists are studying the sequence of amino acids to determine how the three
species are related.

Species A: a v l c f m f a (For the first pair, differences are highlighted in bold)

Species B: v v l c f p wd
Species A: a v l c f m f a
Species C: a v l g f m f a
Species B: v v l c f p wd
Species C: a v l g f m f a

a) Using the information given above, fill out each cell of the table with the # of differences
between each pair of species. You don’t need to list the differences, just say how many there are.

Species C Species B
Species A  1  4
Species B  5 No differences

b) Use the number of differences to select the most likely evolutionary relationship between the
three species. (Circle the correct one.)

Question 13. According to the table of differences listed below, which cladogram is correct?
(This is super challenging and for those of you who like puzzles. You don’t have to get it right or
spend forever on it…)
A B C D E F
B 14          
 C 5 15        
D 5 15 2      
E 3 14 4 4    
F 1 14 5 5 3  
G 14 1 15 15 14 14

Question 14. a) How much of your genome would you estimate is junk DNA or DNA that does
not have any apparent function? (You can speculate here…)
b) How much of your genome do you think you share with other members of Homo Sapiens?
(You can speculate here….)
We share almost 100% of our genome with other Homo sapiens.

c) How much of your genome do you think you share with your closest primate relative, the
chimpanzees? (You can speculate here….)
We share 98% of our genome with chimpanzees.
d) If humans have 3 billion amino acid bonds in their genome (3 x 109), how many of these
bonds determine our unique individuality among other humans? (Hint: Look at Figure 13 below.
What is 0.1% of three billion?)
300,000,000 bonds determine our unique individuality.
Question 15. What are the implications for humans of epigenetics? What does the article say
about this issue? Why are people so interested in it, in your own words?
You said we did not have to fill this out in the video presentation.