Oxford University Press | Online Resource Centre

Choose your answers by clicking the radio button next to each choice and then press 'Submit' to get your score.

Question 01

What is a tradeoff?

a) Food given by a male to a female in return for sex.

b) A connection between two traits such that a change in one that improves fitness causes a change in the other that decreases fitness.

c) Any connection between two traits.

d) A conflict between two transcription factors, one that elicits, the other that represses the expression of a gene.

Question 02

Which of the following is not a life history trait?

a) Diploidy

b) Number of offspring per reproductive attempt

c) Survival between the first and second reproductive attempts

d) Size at maturity

Question 03

What kind of variation in a population is represented explicitly in demographic models?

a) Variation in gene frequencies

b) Variation in eye color

c) Variation in survival and reproduction among age classes

d) Variation in competitive ability

Question 04

The geometric mean of the series 2, 1, 2, 1 is:

a) 2

b) 1

c) ³/₂

d) The square root of 2

Question 05

Which is the riskiest life history strategy of all?

a) To mature as early as possible and produce a very large number of offspring.

b) To mature very late, reproduce only once, and have only one offspring.

c) To begin life as a male, reproduce as a male, then change sex and reproduce as a female.

d) To reproduce by fission yielding many offspring that do not disperse very far.

Question 06

Which of the following is a benefit of maturing earlier?

a) Greater fecundity

b) Higher quality offspring

c) Larger body size

d) Shorter generation time

Question 07

Plants living in an environment with growing seasons that vary unpredictably in length mature:

a) exactly as predicted by simple optimality models.

b) earlier and smaller than predicted by simple optimality models.

c) later and larger than predicted by simple optimality models.

d) later and smaller than predicted by simple optimality models.

Question 08

If N is the number of eggs in a clutch, and the probability that an offspring dies before leaving the nest, d(N), is a linear function of the number of eggs in the nest, i.e. d(N) = cN, where c is a constant, then the number of offspring surviving in clutches of different size N will be:

a) N + cN

b) N*cN = cN²

c) N(1 - cN) = N - cN²

d) N + (1-cN) = 1 + (1-c)N

Question 09

Which of the following produces clutches smaller than the Lack clutch?

a) Inability to predict resource levels

b) Ability to abort less-fit offspring

c) Temporal variation in optimal clutch size

d) Parent-offspring conflict won by the parent

Question 10

Consider a population of organisms that on average start to reproduce at age 10 and have 4 offspring every year thereafter, dying on average at age 30. Assume they are at evolutionary equilibrium. Now imagine that a new disease enters the population. This disease only affects organisms older than age 25; it doubles their annual mortality rate. What evolutionary changes do you expect in the host population?

a) Age at maturity will increase to 25.

b) Offspring number will decrease to 2.

c) Age - and size - at maturity will decrease and number of offspring adjusted for size of parent will increase.

d) Average age at death will increase to 35.

Question 11

Aging evolves because:

a) the old die to make resources available to the young.

b) there is no sense investing in maintenance of the body at the expense of reproduction if you are going to be killed anyway by factors beyond your control.

c) no biological system can be maintained perfectly.

d) every time a cell divides, it loses a part of a chromosome.

Question 12

The force of selection operating on an age class must eventually decrease beyond some age because:

a) the old are weaker than the young.

b) older organisms have fewer offspring.

c) older organisms have worse survival.

d) some mortality is inevitable, which ensures that each older age class contains fewer organisms, and therefore fewer opportunities for reproduction, than any younger age class.

Question 13

Why is a 50:50 sex ratio evolutionarily stable in a large population with random mating, external fertilization, and no parental care?

a) Because every organism has one mother and one father.

b) Because these organisms have sex chromosomes: XX females and XY males.

c) Because if males increased in frequency it would pay to produce more female offspring and if females increased in frequency it would pay to produce more male offspring.

d) Because it is in the interests of cytoplasmic parasites to make sure that they occur half the time in males and half the time in females.

Question 14

If you are a sequential hermaphrodite, as which sex should you be born?

a) The sex that loses less fitness by being young and small.

b) The sex that loses less fitness by being old and large.

c) The sex that can dominate a harem.

d) The sex that can grow more rapidly.

Question 15

Differential parental investment in sons versus daughters should depend on social rank under what conditions?

a) Sex is environmentally, not genetically, determined.

b) Social rank has different effects on the reproductive success of males and females.

c) Reproductive success depends on ability to attract mates.

d) The organisms involved are mammals.

Question 16

Consider a species in which daughters (sisters) always mate with sons (brothers). A female can only produce 4 offspring per lifetime. If she produces 1, 2, or 3 sons, how many grandchildren will she have (assuming all offspring survive)?

a) 1 son yields 4 grandchildren, 2 sons yield 8, 3 sons yield 12

b) 1 son yields 12 grandchildren, 2 yield 8, 3 yield 4.

c) 1 son yields 8 grandchildren, 2 yield 8, 3 yield 8

d) 1 son yields 12 grandchildren, 2 yield 4, 3 yield 8

Question 17

If a parasitoid wasp encounters prey of different sizes into each of which she can lay one egg, what should she do to maximise the number of surviving offspring?

a) Lay male and female eggs at random.

b) Lay male eggs into large hosts and female eggs into small hosts.

c) Lay male and female eggs in alternating sequence to make sure she produces close to a 50:50 sex ratio.

d) Lay male eggs into small hosts and female eggs into large hosts.

Question 18

The Shaw-Mohler theorem states that a mutant that changes sex allocation will invade a population of residents with some sex allocation only when the change in sex allocation that it causes:

a) increases the fitness gained through one sex enough to compensate for any fitness lost through the other sex.

b) moves the population closer to a 50:50 sex ratio.

c) results in sequential hermaphroditism.

Oxford University Press, Online Resource Centre, Chapter 10.

Chapter 10

Instructions