BIOL 3380: Study Guide for Exam 1

Chapter 1

• Know the life cycle of HIV
• Know the different immune cells and how they are affected by AIDS?
• How does HIV cause AIDS? What is the natural progression of the disease?
• Why does AZT treatment over time become ineffective? How is it evolving?
• What is an escape mutation?  How is it related to the larger problem of HIV's ability to evolve within an individual?
• Why are some people resistant to AIDS?
• What was the origin of AIDS?

Chapter 2

• Know what kind of evidence that is used to support evolution. Remember the examples.
  • Living species
  • Fossil record
• Know what kind of evidence that we have for descent with modification
  • Phylogenetic trees
  • Ring species
  • homologies--all types
• How to date the age of earth
• Methodological naturalism vs. Ontological naturalism

Chapter 3

• Know Darwin's postulates
• Adaptation and Darwinian fitness
• Know the experiments on snapdragons and finches.  What were the results of testing Darwin's postulates?
• Know all the points under the nature of natural selection
  • Selection acts on individuals and not for the good of the species
  • Selection acts on phenotypes but evolution is change in allele frequencies
  • Selection is not forward looking and does not lead to perfection
  • New traits can evolve
  • Selection is nonrandom but not progressive
• The Modern Synthesis