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Previous Year Questions

TLS Online TPP Program

QUESTION ID:1

The larvae of the monarch butterfly feed exclusively on milkweed plants. These larvae are relatively less susceptible to predation because they are: 

QUESTION ID:2

Which one of the following evolutionary processes best describes Red Queen dynamics? 

QUESTION ID:3

Social behaviors can evolve to increase or decrease the fitness of Or recipient of the behavior. A behaiour is considered to be spiteful. when the fitness impact on the actor n while the fitness impact on the recipient is  

QUESTION ID:4

Which of the following se of animals belongs to the group Afrotherial 

QUESTION ID:5

What genetic markers ate required to determine paternity in binds? 

QUESTION ID:6

Species I and 2 are sympatric. but specks 2 has a wider physiological tolerance than species I. The two species simultaneously invade a new environment that has an average temperature of 22 degrees C. What are the expected outcomes for specks I and 2 ? 

QUESTION ID:7

Plants have evolved many morphological adaptations to extreme environmental conditions. Which of the following is NOT an adaptation to desert life? 

QUESTION ID:8

When levee mammals walk in the foist and trample small plants. those plants die. this  interspecies relationship b a font of : 

QUESTION ID:9

The population of a widely distributed species gets divided into two subpopulations due to the appearance of a mountain kirk'. Eventually these subpopulations evolve into Imo separate species. This is a case of : 

QUESTION ID:10

In a population, the frequency of genotypes at a locus are Ai Ai = 0.16. AIA2= 0.48. A2A2= 0.36. The probability of fixation of the At allele by genetic drift is 

QUESTION ID:11

The percent sequence divergence in the mitochondria' Cytochromes b acne between two species was found to be 5%. Much of this divergence in the coding region would be contributed by changes at the : 

QUESTION ID:12

In  haplo-diploid insects. males are haploid and females are diploid. A female. who is heterozygous for a recessive red-eye colour mutation. mates with a wild-type black-eyed male. What would be the percentage of eye colour phenotypes among their daughters? 

QUESTION ID:13

What is the relationship between effective population size (Ne) and total population size (N) of any naturally occurring eutkaryotie population? 

QUESTION ID:14

The figure Mow represents the phylogenetic relationships of taxa P-S. Assuming that the blanch lengths are proportional to divergence time. which among the following specks pairs would be expected to show the most post-zygotic isolation? 

QUESTION ID:15

Members of which of the following animal phyla are exclusively marine ? 

QUESTION ID:16

Some amphibians. such as axolotl larvae. rarely metamorphose into an adult form in spite of being sexually mature. This phenomenal of retention of larval characters in the adult Iona is known as :

QUESTION ID:17

Plants are classified into the following major categories : division. class, order and family. These four categories generally have specific suffixes. Which among the following describes the coned( order of specific nitrites for the categories of division. class. order and family. respectively ? 

QUESTION ID:18

The Indian cricket team captain into lost the coin tom for nine consecutive games. Assuming that an unbiased cow is being used throughout the tournament the chance that the Indian captain will win the inn on the 10th game is 

QUESTION ID:19

Consider the function y = ex The slope of this function at x = 10 IS 

QUESTION ID:20

Which of the following ben demonstrates the phenomenon of a sign stimulus as defined in classical ethology '? A male stickleback fish performing an aggressive display when presented with : 

QUESTION ID:21

Eating puffer fish can sometimes be fatal for human beings. This is because puffer fish cony a potent toxin known as : 

QUESTION ID:22

The 'Selfish Herd' hypothesis for group behavior predicts : 

QUESTION ID:23

Birds that inhabit forests typically produce calls in the form of low-pitched whistles. The most likely reason is that low-pitched whistles : 

QUESTION ID:24

At mid latitudes. which of the following biomes is associated with hot dry summers and cool rainy winters? 

QUESTION ID:25

Rafflesia  produces one of the largest flowers on earth and is typically pollinated by : 

QUESTION ID:26

Lantana COMM is an invasive weed introduced into India from South America. If you characterize the genetic Variation of this species in both its native and introduced populations. the South American population is expected to have : 

QUESTION ID:27

Which of the following combination of properties of neuronal circuits mediating escape behaviour in mina's would make them most effective at evading predates? 

QUESTION ID:28

An experimentalist rejects a null hypothesis because she finds a p- vale to be 0.01. This implies that :

QUESTION ID:29

A student counts every indnidual blackbuck in two manifolds. He finds 2100 and 2300 blackbuck in the two areas. Which statistical ten is writhed to establish that these two population sizes are different ?

QUESTION ID:30

The plot below shows the fitness of tun traits as a function of relative frequency of wait-I in the population The solid line represents the fitness of uai•1 and the dotted line lamaseries the fitness of trait-2. Which of the following is most likely to be TRUE ? 


QUESTION ID:31

The following figure shows the phylogeny of insect species 1-5. Each of these 5 insect species harbors a specific bacterial cudosymbiont. S. R. Q. T and P are the endosynibiout bacteria associated with insect species I . 2. 3. 4 and 5. respectively.  Which one of the following symbiont phylogenetic trees suggests host shill by these endosymbionts? 

QUESTION ID:32

P to T are islands of different sizes at different distances from the mainland. whets the distance x<Y<z.. The area of island P>Q>R=S=T. Assuming that them is migration only nom the mainland to islands and not between islands. winch of the following is NOT true about species richness on thew islands ? 

QUESTION ID:33

The frequency of an allele at a loan on the non-recombining region of the Y chromosome in humans is 03. If the population size is N and the sex ratio is 1:1. what is the number of copies of the alleles in the population? 

QUESTION ID:34

The species compositions of three areas. P. Q and R are shown below : 
P: Cobra. Gecko. Crow. Viper Q. Viper. Tiger. Salamander. Fish R: Salamander. Viper. Frog. Chameleon
Based on the relationship between species, one can determine the phylogenetic diversity of each region. Which of the following caprues the order of phylogenetic diversity of these legions ?

QUESTION ID:35

Recent paleoaenomic studies indicate that some groups of living humans Ince Neanderthal gents in then genomes. What is the best explanation fog this phenomenon

QUESTION ID:36

A population grows as per the equation dn/dt = r n (1 - n/1000) when: n is the population density. r is the intrinsic growth rate and 1000 is the carrying capacity. The growth rate of the population is maximum at a population density of 

QUESTION ID:37

An ecology exam paper has a large number of multiple choice questions with five options each, of which only one is correct. An unprepared student picks one of the five given options randomly, and attempts all questions. A correct answer yields one mark whereas a wrong answer yields negative x mark(s). To ensure that an unprepared student most likely gets zero marks, the value of x must be  (write only the magnitude, not the sign). 

QUESTION ID:38

Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration is likely to benefit C3 plants more than C4 plants because :

QUESTION ID:39

In metacommities composed of species A and B. the rates of colonization of habitat patches by A and B are CA and Ca. The rates of extinction for specie, A and B in the absence of competition. are EA and ED. Species A is the superior competitor within any given patch. Which one of the following conditions is necessary to allow the continued persistence of species B? 

QUESTION ID:40

Batesian and Millrian mimicry are effective anti-predatory defenses because predators show : 

QUESTION ID:41

Guppies are fish that typically have blue. red and yellow spots on their bodies In an experiment. one prow of guppies was subjected to treatment X. where they were maintained and allowed to breed for Several Generations in ponds containing their natural predator species. A second group of fish was subjected to treatment Y. where they were maintained and allowed to heed for the same number of generation in ponds from which all predators were removed. After several generations. it was found that guppies subjected to treatment X had lost their blue spots. whereas those subjected to treatment 1' showed an increase in the number of blue spots. Based on these observation. which one of the following statements can be rejected

QUESTION ID:42

Which of the following is NOT a plausible explanation for the evolution of seed dispersal mechanisms in plains 

QUESTION ID:43

Which of the following evolutionary changes was NOT associated with the colonization of land by plants 

QUESTION ID:44

A species possesses ten types of olfactory receptors (encoded by ten unique gene sequences) but is able to perceptually distinguish a hundred different odorants. This is possible because each olfactory receptor type : 

QUESTION ID:45

Among vertebrates, male-only parental care is more commonly found among fishes and amphibians than birds and mammals. The most likely reason for this is because fishes and amphibians are characterized by : 

QUESTION ID:46

For a given low population size, which of these plant species are more likely to experience Allee effects ? 

QUESTION ID:47

Which of the following combinations of leaf traits is most likely to be observed in terrestrial plant communities that occur in low-nutrient environments with herbivory '? 

QUESTION ID:48

Which of the following sets of parameters form the basis of Holdridge's lifezone classification ? 

QUESTION ID:49

The Annual Net Primary Productivity (ANPP) of ecosystems varies with the type of biome. Which of the following represents the comet order of ANPP values ? 

QUESTION ID:50

Which of these communities al, R2, R3, and R4). each with 80 species and represented by their Species Rank-Abundance curves, is likely to have the highest value of Shannon's index of species diversity ? 

QUESTION ID:51

In any experimental design. we prefer a large sample size because : 

QUESTION ID:52

In haplcsdiplord insects. males are haploid and females arc diploid. Nora WM-diploid species. assault that each individual mates only once. The minimum coefficient of relatedness between two female cousins. whose maternal grandmother is the same. is (enter answer to 4 decimal places). 

QUESTION ID:53

Match the scientists with the concepts or theories they are most famously associated with 


QUESTION ID:54

Which of the following graphs best represents the function given by the following equation : 


QUESTION ID:55

On the semi-arid plateaus of the Western Ghats. raptors. lizards. and grasshoppers dominate the community of animals. Raptors prey primarily on lizards. which prey primarily on Grasshopper . If raptor density declines significantly. which oldie following is expected ? 

QUESTION ID:56

She has a sharp tongue and it can occasionally. than  

QUESTION ID:57

I ........ made arrangements had I ......... informed earlier. 

QUESTION ID:58

In the simmer. water consumption is known to decrease overall by 25%. A Water Board official gates that in the summer household con summer decreases by 20%. while other consumption increases by 10%.  Which of the following statements is correct? 

QUESTION ID:59

40% of deaths on city Roads may be attributed to drunken driving The number of degrees needed to represent this as a slice of a pie chart is 

QUESTION ID:60

Some tables are shelves. Some shelves AM chairs All chairs are benches. Which of the following conclusions can be deduced from the preceding sentences?
i. At least one beach is a table
ii. AT least one shelf is a bench
ii. At least one chair is a table
iv. All benches am chairs 

QUESTION ID:61

"If you arc looking for a history of India. or for an account of the rise and fall of the British Raj. or for the season of the clewing of the subcontinent into two mutually  antagonistic parts and the effects this mutilation will have in the respective sections. and ultimately on Asia. you will not find it in these pages: for though I have spent a life time in the comity. I lived too near the seat of events. and was too intimately associated with the across. To get the perspective needed for the impartial recording of these  matters 
Here  the need 'antagonistic' is closest in meaning to

QUESTION ID:62

S. T. U. V. W. X. Y. and Z are seated around a circular table. T's neighbours are Y and V. Z is seated third to the left of T and second to the tight of S. U's neighborus are S and Y: and T and W are not seated opposite each other. Who is third to the left of V? 

QUESTION ID:63

Tracks (10 m long) and can (5 m long) go on a single lane bridge. There must be a gap of at least 20 as after each truck and a gap of at least 15 in after each car. Trucks and cars travel 31 a speed of 36 km. h. If cars and trucks go alternately. what is the maximum number of vehicles that can use the bridge in one hour? 

QUESTION ID:64

There are 3 Indians and 3 Chinese in a gimp of 6 people Flow many subgroups of this poop can we choose so that very  subgroup has at least one Indian?

QUESTION ID:65

A contour line joins locations having the same height above the mean sea level. The following is a contour plot of a geographical region. Comma lines are shown at 25 in intern& in this plot. 
The path from P to Q is best described by