Question

1. A population of monkeys on an island in the Amazon river is preyed upon by margays (a type of small cat).  Within this population the largest monkeys are too big for the margays to catch and the smallest monkeys are too agile for the margays to catch. Thus the mid-size monkeys have the lowest fitness. Over time this population could potentially split into two populations and two separate species of large and small monkeys. What type of speciation would occur in this hypothetical example and what would be a major barrier to this speciation actually occurring? (i.e. what is a problem that might stop the speciation).

A) allopatric/genetic drift

B) allopatric/lack of geographic separation

C) sympatric/genetic drift

D) sympatric/gene flow between large and small monkeys

E) allopatric/secondary contact between large and small monkeys

F) sympatric/secondary contact between large and small monkeys

2. Two populations of lizards live on adjacent islands. Lizards can swim between the islands but do so rarely. The two populations cannot be distinguished by any morphological or behavioral feature and will readily mate and produce offspring when placed together in nature. There are differences in allele frequency between the two populations at several loci. Which species concept would recognize them as separate species?

A) morphological

B) phylogenetic

C) ecological

D) biological

Answer 1

1. Here the answer is sympatric/genetic drift. Because here may be overlapping of genes occured and due to the small population genetic drift is also occured. Thus due to the mid size monkeys have lowest fitness the mid size character is lost.

2. Phylogenetic species concept would recognize them as separate species.because phylogenetic system is based on the mordern genome comparison technique.