Question 1;

(a) Why was Charles Darwin so interested in fancy pigeons, from a scientific po int of view? (Answer in no more than 50 words). Show pigeons are a great example of artificial selective breeding, breeders w ould pair together males and females with similar traits to produce offspring wi th the trait. This is an example of Darwin's theory of evolution in action. (b) How can the obviously non-adaptive changes associated with old age be expla ined in terms of natural selection? (Answer in no more than 50 words). Few animals have evolved to continue life after breeding ages, but several speci es of highly evolved social animals such as whales/dolphins and primates live we ll past menopausal ages to pass on useful experience to help the younger generat ions survive and therefore pass on traits. 1. (c ) Figure 1 shows the phylogenetic relationships between selected insects, together with some of their characteristics, listed below each. Study the figure and answer the questions beneath with the aid of the diagram shown on 99% Ape, page 37. 1. Identify one shared derived character, one shared primitive character and one convergent character, in each case stating which species share it. (About 30 wo rds.) derived character; 1 pair of wings, shared by dung beetle and ladybird. primitive character; black and red spots, shared by burnet moth and ladybird convergent character; 2 pairs of wings, shared by hawker dragonfly and ringlet b utterfly 1. Assuming the minimum amount of change, what states of the characters would yo u expect to find in the latest shared ancestor for four of the insects, indicate d by the large red circle? Briefly explain your reasoning. the least complicated collection of traits would be an ancestor with with one or two pairs of wings, no spots which does not have scales but definitely pupates. Arguing that the next common ancestor to either of the sister pairs could eithe r gain a pair of wings in the case of the burnet moth and the ringlet butterfly OR losing a pair of wings in the case of the ladybird and the dung beetle, eithe r way there are divergents from the common ancestor. spots must have been independently gained by the ladybird and the burnet mot h in their divergence from the dung beetle and ringlet butterfly respectively. scales, like the pairs of wings, has either been gained in the evolutionary course of the butterfly and the moth or lost by the ladybird and dung beetle.. all the animals pupate, which is a trait inherited by from the recent common ancestor.

Question 2;

(a) Before the human genome was sequenced it was thought that more complex orga nisms must have more genes than simpler ones and that in humans these might numb er more than 100,000. How did the sequencing of the human genome affect this ide a about the number of genes and their role in complexity and evolution? (Answer in no more than 150 words). Before the human genome was published in 2001 estimates for the number of genes in humans where between 15,000 and 160,000. Humans have exactly the number of ge nes that we need. They don't need to have many more genes than fruit flies or wo rms because a small number of unique genes are all that's required to make signi ficant differences in development. They don't need to have specially complex mec hanisms to "explain" anything because there is nothing unique about human biolog y compared to other animals on the genetic level. Human genes are fundamantally the same as those in Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly), Caenorhabditis elegans (nematode worm), and Arabidopsis thaliana (a small flowering plant). (b) Of what relevance is the sequencing of the human genome to medicine? (Answer in no more than 150 words). Many chronic illnesses have recently been discovered to have links so certai n genes. for example in the last few years a genetic test for Huntington s disease , a degenerative brain disorder, has been developed, and can diagnose the illnes s before any symptoms appear by testing for the faulty gene which can be passed on from parent to child. Other illnesses have been linked to genetics including cancers and cystic fibrosis. There are also several genetic risk factors, genes that make a person more su sceptible to being diagnosed with a disease, there are genetic risk factors for heart disease and famously disbetes. It has also been discovered that race is a big factor in someones susceptibili ty to certain diseases, for example a chronic disease called sickle cell anemia which morphs the shape of blood cells preventing them from circulating the body affects a proportion of the African race.

(c ) How do the contributors to the 'A celebration of the Genome, Part II' artic le think knowledge of the human genome influences (or should influence) how we t hink about ourselves in relation to others? (Answer in no more than 100 words). The mapping of the human genome has allowed science to definitively see the c onnections between people, and how people share a common ancestry. As Charmaine Royal writes in the article, race is a term misused to describe a group of peopl e in regard to their graphical location, but in fact race is a term to describe a group of people with shared common ancestry displaying a similar trait or traits . The human genome has proved that the humans share ancestors with each other mu ch more often than previously thought, and we are all connected and related in s ome respect. Question 3 (a) Describe in up to 250 words how you collected data for your Cepaea investi gation.

For my investigation I collected snails in my own large garden in the suburb s in South Manchester. I collected a total of 20 snails and added my findings to the Evolution Megalab website. I took a photo of my sample size and released th e snails in the same environment that I found them and recorded my data on the m egalab website. The majority of Cepaea hortensis snails I found living along the other brick wall and on the leaves of my wall high Ivy where yellow with a single band and I found two others that where brown with a single black band, both of these were hiding in a hollow stump of a tree. Both species were easy to indentify as the l ip of their shells are clearly very pale. The snails where quite easy to find, I managed to collect my sample within half an hour of searching. I searched the Megalab Website for comparable samples in the surrounding area of 53.44249/-2.26757, I found several other samples from the same area in Southe rn Manchester, on comparison my findings of mostly yellow snails are a common tr ait found in this area. Interestingly, closer to the centre of Manchester snails with a dark brown shell, which I found few of, are the most common. (b) What did the data that you collected and/or derived from the Evolution MegaLab t ell you about possible natural selection in Cepaea? Explain how your results sup port your conclusion. (Up to 200 words in total). I expected to find a real mix of several colours in my snails as the area tha t they are living is full of diffrently coloured surfaces such as red brick, gre en plant leaves and wood. My snails were mainly a pale yellow colour with a sing le black band, which I noticed was a very effective colour scheme for hiding amo ngst the broken cracked bricks which make up the wall of my garden. This trait h as proven useful for the snails to survive and not be spotted by predators and h as clearly made up the majority of the population in my area. Other samples from similar locations show the same findings, but as I stated in the earlier question, closer to the centre of Manchester the snails seem to become more brown, i believe this is due to the change in architecture from the older, red brick buildings of the suburbs to the yellow/brown concrete which mak es up most of the houses closer to the centre of the city, and provides the snai ls with better camouflage. It would have been more useful if my sample size was larger to provide a bet ter image of the population in the surrounding area, and if i was able to collec t snails from other houses on my street to see if my findings of pale yellow sna ils was consistant.