1. The barn swallow (Hirundo rustica) usually has one mate.

A study was conducted to examine

mate selection in barn swallows.

The hypothesis was that females prefer to mate with males displaying longer tail feathers.
Four groups of male birds were captured for study. The first group had its tail feathers
shortened. The second group (control I) had its tail feathers shortened and the pieces reattached.
The third group (control II) was unaltered. The fourth group had its tail feathers elongated by
attaching the pieces removed from the shortened group.

Graph A below shows the mean length of time required by each group to attract a mate
(pre-mating period). Graph B shows the reproductive success of each group of male birds ie the
number of chicks that reached full development and were ready to fly (fledglings) by the end of
the reproductive season. The vertical lines on both graphs indicate the variability of the data.

Graph A 25

20

15
Pre-mating period
/ days
10

0
shortened control I control II elongated
Tail treatment

Graph B 12

10

number of fledglings 6

0
shortened control I control II elongated
Tail treatment
[Source: adapted from Moller reported in Evolutionary Analysis, by J C Herron (2001), Prentice Hall, New Jersey]

1
 (a) Determine the difference in the mean pre-mating period for the elongated versus the
shortened treatment groups.

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(1)

(b) State the relationship between tail length and the number of fledglings.

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(1)

(c) Suggest reasons for the difference in reproductive success of the shortened and elongated
tail treatment groups.

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(2)

(d) Explain the conclusions that can be drawn from the data for control I and control II.

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(3)
(Total 7 marks)

2. Molecular and radioactive dating of fossils are used to determine the phylogeny of organisms.

2
 Turtles are organisms with a long evolutionary history, making them an ideal group to study.
Below is a phylogeny of some turtle genera developed using both fossil and molecular dating.

Carettochelys
Apalone
Lissemys
Chelonia
Dermochelys
Chelydra
Dermatemys
Staurotypus
Sternotherus
Platysternon
Emys
Graptemys
Trachemys
Geochelone
Mauremys
Heosemys
JURASSIC CRETACEOUS CENOZOIC MODERN

206.0 144.0 65.0 2.5 0

Age / mya

[Source: Thomas J. Near, Peter A. Meylan, and H. Bradley Shaffer, ‘Assessing Concordance of Fossil Calibration Points in
Molecular Clock Studies: An Example Using Turtles’, The American Naturalist (Feb 2005), vol. 165, issue 2, pp. 137–146.
Copyright © 2008. University of Chicago Press.]

(a) Identify the oldest turtle genus.

Carettocheyls
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(1)

(b) Compare the phylogeny of Chelonia with Graptemys.

Both have a common ace
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(2)

3
(c) Discuss which turtle genera are most closely related.

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(3)
(Total 6 marks)