Biology · Science General

Evolution and Biological Adaptation

1,354 Questions

Evolution and biological adaptation focus on natural selection, speciation events, and how organisms adjust to environmental changes over time. These foundational biology concepts appear frequently in general science sections of civil services and school board examinations. Use these questions to study evolutionary theories, ancestral traits, and the fossil record.

Natural selection mechanismsSpeciation event examplesBiological adaptation traitsPanspermia hypothesis conceptsFossil record analysisMate selection theories

Evolution and Biological Adaptation Questions

Multiple choice

Directions: Choose the most correct option out of the following: Which of the following is an example of an astonishing extremophile?

Extremophiles: Some environments are not good homes for most normal kinds of life. Places like that are called extreme environments. That doesn't mean that there isn't any life in extreme environments. Certain creatures can live and grow in extreme environments. Scientists have a special name for creatures that live in extreme environments. They are called extremophiles. The -phile in extremophile comes from a Greek word that means love. Extremophiles are creatures that love extreme environments. Most extremophiles are microbes. There are also a few types of larger creatures, like special types of shrimp and insects, which are also extremophiles. In the last few decades scientists have found extremophiles in places where they used to think life couldn't survive. Some extremophiles live in very hot or very cold environments. Others live in environments that have acids or radiation in them. When Earth was young, most environments on our planet were extreme compared to today. Environments on many other planets and moons within our Solar System and beyond are also extreme. Scientists hope that studying extremophiles will help us learn about early life on Earth and about evolution. They also hope we can learn about the chances for life on other planets by studying extremophiles. Scientists who study these sorts of things are called astrobiologists. Scientists use special names for extremophiles that live in different environments. Thermophiles live in hot places. Acidophiles can put up with strong acids. Xerophiles live in deserts and other dry places. Halophiles like it salty, while cryophiles (or psychrophiles) love the cold. Some creatures are extreme in more than one way. Microbes that live in acidic hot springs are both thermophiles and acidophiles. A few big big animals and plants also survive in really extreme environments. While they aren't exactly extremophiles, some of them do live in places that would kill most normal creatures. Camels can go for long periods without water in the dry deserts where they live. Emperor penguins somehow make it through cold Antarctic winters. Extreme plants, such as many types of cactus, also live in the heat and dryness of deserts. Strange tube worms grow in boiling hot water filled with strange chemicals near deep sea hydrothermal vents.

  1. Camels

  2. Tubeworms

  3. Microbes

  4. Cactus
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Strange tube worms grow in boiling hot water filled with strange chemicals near deep sea hydrothermal vents.

Multiple choice

Which of the following are not the salient features of Charles Darwin theory? a) Organisms have limited capacity to reproduce. b) Each organism has to struggle for its day to day survival. c) Different individuals of a particular species have similar traits. d) Those organisms which are the fittest are able to survive, while others perish.

  1. a, b, c, d

  2. only b, c, d

  3. only a and c

  4. only b and d

  5. only a, b, c
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Yes, it is correct. a and c are not the salient features of Darwin theory. Organisms have unlimited capacity to reproduce and different individuals of a particular species have different traits.

Multiple choice

Match the following and choose the correct option given below.

 
Column I Column II
A. Allopatric speciation i. Formed due to several ecotypes having different adaptations
B. Sympatric speciation ii. Formed due to genetic drift and natural selection
C. Adaptive radiation iii. Formed from new species from spatially isolated populations
D. Gradual speciation iv. Formed due to sudden appearance of reproductive isolation

  1. A – iv, B – iii, C – ii, D – i

  2. A – ii, B – iii, C – iv, D – i

  3. A – iii, B – ii, C – iv, D – i

  4. A – iii, B – iv, C – i, D – ii
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

Gradual speciation species are formed due to genetic drift and natural selection.

Multiple choice

What is a genus?

  1. A group of individual organisms with fundamental similarities

  2. A group of organisms having common features and morphological or developmental similarities

  3. A group of related species having more common characters

  4. The assemblage of families which exhibit a few similar characters
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Genus comprises a group of related species which has more characters in common in comparison to species of other genera.

Multiple choice

Lamarck’s theory of evolution is also called

  1. survival of the fittest

  2. theory of special reaction

  3. inheritance of acquired characters

  4. all of the above
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Lamarck in his book ‘Philosophic Zoologique' postulated that environment influenced the morphological characters and that these changes were inherited in the next generation.

Multiple choice

Which of the following evidences does not favour the Lamarckian concept of inheritance of acquired characteristics?

  1. Absence of limbs in snakes

  2. Presence of webbed toes in aquatic birds

  3. Melanisation in peppered moth

  4. Lack of pigment in cave dwelling animals
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Melanisation in peppered moth does not favour the Lamarckian concept of inheritance of acquired characteristics. This concept of melanisation was put forward by Darwin.

Multiple choice

Which of the following statements is/are false?

a. The wings of an insect and a bird are an example of analogous organs. b. The changes in the non-reproductive body cells of an organism can be inherited by its offsprings. c. Evolution is the sequence of gradual changes that take place in the primitive organisms over million of years in which new species are produced.

  1. Only a

  2. Only a and b

  3. Only b

  4. Only b and c

  5. Only c
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

This is the correct option as this statement is false. The changes in the non-reproductive body cells of an organism cannot be inherited by its offsprings.

Multiple choice

The process by which young animals learn the characteristics of their parents is called

  1. asexual imprinting

  2. filial imprinting

  3. sexual imprinting

  4. familiar imprinting
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Filial imprinting specifically describes the process where young animals learn to recognize and follow their parents. This differs from sexual imprinting (which influences mate choice later in life) and other forms of learning. The term 'filial' specifically refers to the offspring-parent relationship, making this the correct terminology.

Multiple choice

Why is the first anatomically modern human female called a mitochondria eve?

  1. Because mitochondrial DNA is inherited without replication.

  2. Because mitochondria is the first formed cell organelle.

  3. Because mitochondria is the energy producing organelle.

  4. Because mitochondria DNA has uracil in place of guanine.

  5. Because mitochondria DNA forms non-coding genes.
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

Because all mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) generally (but see paternal mtDNA transmission) is passed from mother to offspring without recombination, all mtDNA in every living person is directly descended from hers by definition, differing only by the mutations that over generations have occurred in the germ cell mtDNA, since the conception of the original mitochondrial eve.

Multiple choice

What does the homologous organs indicate?

  1. Parallel evolution

  2. Natural selection

  3. Convergent evolution

  4. Common descendent

  5. Genetic drift
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

Homologous organs have the same ancestral origin, same structure but different function.

Multiple choice
Directions: In the following question, four statements are provided between an opening statement 1 and closing statement 6. The four statements are jumbled up and form a coherent paragraph when properly arranged. Select the alternative representing the proper and logical sequencing of these six taken together.
1. Richard Owen had exaggerated and misinterpreted the structural difference between apes and humans, referring to the 'last link in the chain of changes' between them, a link he couldn't find.
A. According to this notion, all creatures were arrayed as a chain of creation that proceeded step by step, toward perfection.
B. This was a play on the Great Chain of Being, a medieval concept, with origins dating back to Aristotle.
C. This metaphorical chain linked the lowest beast to the highest, mankind, which was in turn linked to angles, archangels, and the Divine Being himself.
D. The chain did not represent evolution, Darwin's 'descent with modification'.
6. It represented instead a static differentiation, a sequence or orderliness to the objects of creation, not change.

  1. CDAB

  2. ABDC

  3. ABCD

  4. <div align="justify">BACD
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

This para jumble talks about vague existence of the concept of missing link, before Darwin released his 'origin of species'. Looking at the options carefully, only statement B is in continuation with statement 1. A is to follow B as it explains latter i.e. B.