On the Origin of Species: Part Ii

ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES: PART II

Name: ______

Chapter 3 – Struggle for Existence

1. On page 63, Darwin discusses geometrical increase in populations. Which type of growth that we have talked about it synonymous with ‘geometric increase’? Whose doctrine did he apply to animal and vegetable kingdoms? Relate Darwin’s analysis of the slowest breeder of all known animals and explain how it is used to support his concept of a struggle for existence.

2. Describe an experiment that Darwin conducted to demonstrate the ‘checks to increase’.

3. On page 75, Darwin states the ‘the struggle almost invariably will be most severe between the individuals of the same species’. Why is this a reasonable statement?

Chapter 4 – Natural Selection

4. How does Darwin define Natural Selection in simple terms on page 81? How does he demonstrate that species in any land are not perfectly adapted to their conditions of life (and thus demonstrate that natural selection continues to occur)?

5. How can the color of organisms be viewed as the result of natural selection? Based on the terminology used on page 1162 of your textbook, what kind of examples does Darwin use? What other types of coloration exist? And how can they be said to benefit those species that exhibit those patterns?

6. Relate one of Darwin’s Illustrations of the action of Natural Selection.

7. Darwin discusses ‘intercrossing’ for quite some length. Is this process thought to foster vigour and fertility? Explain. How can many plants be monoecious and many aquatic and few terrestrial animals get away with being hermaphrodites, while most terrestrial animals have separate sexes?

8. Identify three important circumstances favorable to natural selection.

9. During Darwin’s summary in the last few pages of the chapter, he suggests a relationship between life and divergence. What is this relationship?