1. Longer tails of male barn swallows evolve because female barn swallows prefer to mate with the males that have the longest tails. This process is best described as

intersexual selection

2. No two human individuals are alike, except for identical twins. The chief cause of the variation among individuals is

genetic variation

3. Road construction has isolated a small portion of a beetle population from the main population. After a few generations, this new population exhibits dramatic genetic differences from the old one, most likely because

allopatric speciation

4. Sparrows with the average-sized wings survive severe storms better than those with longer or shorter wings, illustrating

stabilizing selection

5. Which of the following reflect aspects of Hutton and Lyell's ideas of gradualism that were incorporated into Darwin's theory of evolution?

uniformitarianism- mechanisms of change are constant over time

6. Which of the following is not an observation or inference on which natural selection is based?

poorly adapted individuals never produce offspring

7. Analysis of forelimb anatomy of humans, bats, and whales shows that human and bats have fairly similar skeletal structures, while whales have diverged considerably in the shapes and proportions of their bones. However, analysis of several genes in these species suggests that all three diverged from a common ancestor at about the same time. Which of the following is the best explanation for these data?

Homologous structures. Natural selection in an aquatic environment resulted in significant changes to whale forelimb anatomy.

8. Which of the following observations helped Darwin shape his concept of descent with modification?

South American temperate plants are more similar to the tropical plants of South America than to the temperate plants of Europe

9. What is the term for the pattern of evolution where species stay unchanged for long periods of time and then undergo rapid change?

punctuated equilibrium