22. Evolutionary Genetics

Which of the following structures on a phylogenetic tree represents the evolutionary connections between organisms?

Which principle is NOT used to construct a phylogenetic tree?

Why might mitochondrial, Y chromosome, and autosomal DNA provide different perspectives on our evolutionary past, for example, with respect to our relationship with Neanderthals?

What insights have analyses of human mitochondrial DNA provided into our recent evolutionary past?

What lines of evidence support the hypothesis that modern humans evolved in Africa and then subsequently migrated throughout the globe?

Discuss how both gains and losses of regulatory elements may lead to human-specific traits.

How do copy-number variants arise? Do they account for more polymorphism than SNPs within the human population?

Consider possible societal and ethical dilemmas that might arise if we currently shared the planet with another hominin.

Carl Linnaeus, the 18th-century botanist who laid the foundation for the modern system of taxonomic nomenclature, placed chimpanzees and humans in the same genus. Discuss the merits of this classification.

What must be assumed in order to validate the answers in Problem 7?

Describe how selection at a locus can result in a loss of polymorphism surrounding the locus.