Master NEET Zoology with topic-wise questions. Tailored for NEET students, these questions strengthen your Biology preparation.
Which of the following is NOT a characteristic typically associated with organisms that predominantly reproduce asexually?
Rapid population growth in stable environments
Adaptation to narrow ecological niches
High genetic diversity within populations
Reduced energy expenditure on mate finding
Certain plants can reproduce both sexually and asexually. Under which of the following environmental conditions would asexual reproduction be MOST advantageous?
Unstable environment with frequent disturbances
Environment with high pathogen pressure
Environment with limited resources and high competition
Stable environment with abundant resources
The phenomenon of industrial melanism in Biston betularia demonstrates which evolutionary force most directly?
Genetic drift due to a bottleneck effect
Gene flow between moth populations
Mutation creating new melanic alleles
Natural selection driven by environmental change
Which of the following hominin characteristics is considered LEAST likely to be a direct adaptation to a savannah environment?
Bipedalism
Reduced body hair
Increased cranial capacity
Development of sweat glands
What does 'survival of the fittest' mean in the context of evolution?
The strongest individuals always survive.
Individuals best adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce.
Only the fastest individuals survive.
The largest individuals in a population are the most fit.
Which of the following is an example of an adaptation?
A scar on a dog's leg
Camouflage coloring of a chameleon
A broken wing on a bird
A learned trick by a dolphin
The process where organisms with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce is called:
Mutation
Genetic drift
Gene flow
Natural selection
Certain cave-dwelling organisms have lost their eyes and pigmentation over generations. While seemingly detrimental, these traits persist. Which evolutionary explanation BEST accounts for this phenomenon?
Use it or lose it: In the absence of light, vision is not beneficial, and the energy expenditure for eye development and maintenance is selected against. Similarly, pigmentation is not advantageous in a dark environment.
Bottleneck effect: A random event reduced the cave population, and the surviving organisms happened to lack eyes and pigmentation. These traits then became fixed in the population.
Founder effect: The original cave-dwelling organisms lacked eyes and pigmentation, and these traits persisted in subsequent generations.
Sexual selection: In the dark cave environment, mates are selected based on traits other than vision and pigmentation.
The evolution of insecticide resistance in insect populations is often cited as an example of natural selection. However, a counter-argument proposes that resistance pre-exists in a few individuals and simply becomes more frequent. Which observation MOST strongly refutes this counter-argument and supports the role of natural selection?
Insecticide resistance develops more rapidly in populations with high reproductive rates.
Resistant insects often exhibit reduced fitness in the absence of the insecticide.
The specific resistance mechanism, often a change in a target enzyme, arises independently in geographically separated populations exposed to the same insecticide.
The frequency of resistant insects decreases when insecticide application is stopped.
Which of the following is NOT a key factor driving natural selection?
Variation within a population
Inheritance of traits
Differential reproductive success
Equal reproductive success among all individuals
