Problem 1
What do you consider to be the essential distinction between natural selection and evolution?
Problem 2
What was the contribution of Malthus to Darwin's and Wallace's ideas about evolution?
Problem 3
Why is 'the survival of the fittest' an unsatisfactory description of natural selection?
Problem 4
What is the essential difference between natural selection and the selection practiced by plant and animal breeders?
Problem 5
What are reciprocal transplants? Why are they so useful in ecological studies?
Problem 6
Is sexual selection, as practiced by guppies, different from or just part of natural selection?
Problem 7
Review the utility and applicability of the biospecies concept to a range of groups, including a common species of plant, a rare animal species of conservation interest and bacteria living in the soil.
Problem 8
What is it about the Galapagos finches that has made them such ideal material for the study of evolution?
Problem 9
What is the difference between convergent and parallel evolution?
Problem 10
The process of evolution can be interpreted as optimizing the fit between organisms and their environment or as narrowing and constraining what they can do. Discuss whether there is a conflict between these interpretations.
