Question

Answer the following questions/statements (each number should have a response):

1: What is a cladogram? How does each branch relate to other organisms on the tree?


2: Look at the diagram below. Which animals are most closely related? Which animals are least closely related? Explain your answer.


3: What does the sequence of amino acids tell you about an organism and its relationship to another? Would they be similar or different? Why?


4: Give an example of an amino acid sequence using any 4 amino acids that you want.


5: How does DNA sequencing help an evolutionary biologist?


6: What is the difference between homologous and analogous structures? Provide an example of each.


7: Explain how the placement of fossils in sedimentary rocks can determine the age of the organisms in different levels.

Answer 1

1. A cladogram is an evolutionary tree that diagrams the ancestral relationships among organisms. These branching off points represent a hypothetical ancestor (not an actual entity) which can be inferred to exhibit the traits shared among the terminal taxa above it.

2. This answer is in the given picture.

3. The sequence of amino acids tells us about an organism and its relationship to another because amino acid sequence determines protein structure and structure dictates biochemical function, proteins that share a similar amino acid sequence usually perform similar biochemical functions, even when they are found in distantly related organisms.

4. Methionine, valine, tryptophan, leucine, isoleucine, histidine, lysine, threonine and phenylalanine are some of the examples of an amino acid sequence.

5. The sequence tells scientists the kind of genetic information that is carried in a particular DNA segment. For example, scientists can use sequence information to determine which stretches of DNA contain genes and which stretches carry regulatory instructions, turning genes on or off.

6. Homologous structures share an identical embryonic origin; analogous organs have an identical function. For instance, the bones within the front flipper of a whale are homologous to the bones within the human arm. These structures aren't analogous.

7. Relative age dating is used to determine whether one rock layer (or the fossils in it) are older or younger than another base on their relative position: younger rocks are positioned on top of older rocks.

Step-by-step explanation:

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