Reference no: EM133297378

Questions

1. Evolution can be fast or slow, depending on how quickly the frequencies of alleles change over time. Will interacting species in a coevolutionary hotspot experience faster or slower evolution than the same species in a coldspot? Explain your answer.

2. The human dopamine receptor (D4) plays an important role in the dopamine pathway that controls motivation and reward. Would you expect the D4 gene to be under purifying or positive selection?

3. Scientists have found evidence that a gene contributing to human language ability was under positive selection in the lineage leading to humans. That gene is now fixed in all human populations (occurring at 100% frequency).

Do you think this gene is under positive selection, purifying selection, or no selection currently? Explain your answer.

4. Captive mink are farmed for their fur. Many mink are kept in small cages in barns. Distemper is a viral disease that can be deadly to mink and other mammals. Wild mink can pass this virus to farmed mink if they get into the barns. Strains of distemper found in wild mink rarely cause serious disease in their hosts. However, distemper strains found on affected mink farms are often very deadly, with very high mortality rates. Researchers studying the problem have found that wild and farmed mink have the exact same immunity to the virus.

a. Why do you think the distemper virus is more dangerous to farmed mink?

b. If a distemper strain from farmed mink is re-introduced into the population of wild mink, what do you predict will happen to the virulence of the virus over time? Why?