Examine the following figure and answer the following questions.

How many clades are shown in the figure?

If you were to compare your genome sequence with that of your parents, how would it differ? If you were to compare your genome sequence with another student's in the class, how would it differ? What additional difference might you see if your genome was compared with that of a sub-Saharan African, or if you are of sub-Saharan African descent, with that of a non-African?

Using the following amino acid sequences obtained from different species of apes, construct a phylogenetic tree of the apes.

Examine the following figure and answer the following questions.

What characteristics are shared by the mammalian clade and the primate clade? What characteristic distinguishes the primates from other members of the mammalian clade?

Examine the following figure and answer the following questions.

What characteristic is shared by all clades in the figure?

Considering the phylogenetic assignment of Plasmodium falciparum, the malarial parasite, to the phylum Apicomplexa, what might you speculate as to whether the parasite is susceptible to aminoglycoside antibiotics?

What is meant by the term homology? How is that different from the meaning of homoplasmy?

If one is constructing a phylogeny of reptiles using DNA sequence data, which taxon (birds, mammals, amphibians, or fish) might be suitable to use as an outgroup?

Recent reconstructions of evolutionary history are often dependent on assigning divergence in terms of changes in amino acid or nucleotide sequences. For example, a comparison of cytochrome c shows 10 amino acid differences between humans and dogs, 24 differences between humans and moths, and 38 differences between humans and yeast. Such data provide no information as to the absolute times of divergence for humans, dogs, moths, and yeast. How might one calibrate the molecular clock to an absolute time clock? What problems might one encounter in such a calibration?