Practice Questions

TLS Online TPP Program

#Question id: 5002

All animals with eyes or eyespots that have been studied so far share a gene in common. When mutated, the gene Pax-6 causes lack of eyes in fruit flies, tiny eyes in mice, and missing irises (and other eye parts) in humans. The sequence of Pax-6 in humans and mice is identical. There are so few sequence differences with fruit fly Pax-6 that the human/mouse version can cause eye formation in eyeless fruit flies, even though vertebrates and invertebrates last shared a common ancestor more than 500 million years ago.

The appearance of Pax-6 in all animals with eyes can be explained in multiple ways. Based on the information above, which explanation is most likely?

#Unit 11. Evolution and Behavior

Pax-6 in all of these animals is not homologous; it arose independently in many different animal phyla due to intense selective pressure favoring vision.
The Pax-6 gene is really not ʺoneʺ gene. It is many different genes that, over evolutionary time and due to convergence, have come to have a similar nucleotide sequence and function.
The Pax-6 gene was an innovation of an ancestral animal of the early Cambrian. Animals with eyes or eyespots are descendants of this ancestor.
The perfectly designed Pax-6 gene appeared instantaneously in all animals created to have eyes or eyespots.