Exam 8: The History in Our Genes

Scientists have hypothesized that eukaryotic genome size may be related to

When an allele increases in frequency because it is in close proximity on the chromosome to a positively selected allele, this causes

Which of the following statements is supported by molecular phylogenetic studies of human populations?

Studies show that despite causing a significant risk of hereditary breast cancer, the BRCA1 gene has undergone strong positive selection. One hypothesis for this is that

Which of the following would cause incomplete lineage sorting?

Estimates of F_ST measure

Describe how incomplete lineage sorting caused confusion about the phylogeny of great apes and how the confusion was resolved.

A distribution of coalescent events for a population can be predicted from an estimated population size and randomly generated phylogenetic trees. What are ways for a population to violate this prediction?

The gene BRCA1 normally functions as

In a molecular phylogeny what can serve as a synapomorphy?

The synonymous substitution rate is often assumed to represent

An important limit of molecular phylogenetics is that

Knowing the structure of the HIV tree allowed scientists to pinpoint which specific adaptation that allowed HIV to infect humans?

Proponents of the neutral theory of molecular evolution believe that most substitutions are fixed by _______.

Which of the following is not a characteristic of bacteria that are long-term obligate symbionts?

BRCA1, Brca1, brca1, and PIGBRCA1 are examples of

Alleles that share a genealogical lineage in a gene tree are all

Which of the following statements is not true about lentiviruses?

In 2002, Trask et al. published a study showing that a high frequency of HIV transmissions in Lusaka, Zambia occurred between marriage partners. Specifically, they studied a cohort of married couples where, at the beginning of the study, one partner was infected and the other was not. Later, the uninfected partner became infected. If you were doing this study, how could you use phylogenetic methods to determine whether the newly infected individual was likely infected by his/her partner? Briefly describe your study design and results that would support and results that would refute (you can use drawings if you wish) the partner-partner transmission scenario.

Which of the following is/are (a) pitfall(s) of trying to find the common ancestral allele of mitochondrial mutations?