I/GCSE Biology Question Analysis Topic: Biology - Short Questions
Exam Questions:
1) How does the process of natural selection affect Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium? Explain. List other four factors that disturb the equilibrium.
2) Why the pyramid of energy is always upright? Explain.
Answers:
For I/GCSE Biology, you should know:
1) First, let's understand more about natural selection:
- It's a process where heritable variations help an organism survive and enable it to reproduce and create a large number of offspring.
- In future generations, the frequency of genes and alleles may be changed.
- The formation of new species occur due to natural selection.
On the other hand, the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium says that allelic frequencies in a population are stable and remain constant throughout generations.
So, we can see that natural selection is more inclined towards variation, whereas Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium is more inclined towards alleles being constant.
Other factors that disturb the equilibrium include gene migration, genetic drift, mutations and recombination.
2) This is because when energy flows between trophic levels, energy is always lost as heat at each step. This heat is lost to the atmosphere, not going back to the sun.
Work hard for your I/GCSE Biology examination!
End of analysis. Great!