Question: While examining a rock surface, you have discovered an interesting new organism. Which of the following criteria will allow you to classify the organism as belonging to bacteria but not archaea or Eukarya?

Answer: Cell walls are made primarily of peptidoglycan

Question: Which of the following traits do archaeans and bacteria share?

Answer: Lack of a nuclear envelope and presence of plasma membrane.

Question: Which of the following describe all existing bacteria?

Answer: Tiny, ubiquitous (everywhere), metabolically diverse.

Question: Some researchers have begun attempting to clean up oil spills by adding nonindigenous microbial hydrocarbon degraders to the spill, in the hours that these bacteria will neutralize the dangerous chemicals in the spill. This is an example of ______

Answer: Seeding

Question: Which group was not described in Woese’s tree of life analysis?

Answer: Prokarya

Question: What characteristics were used to classify organisms before Woese’s tree of life analysis?

Answer: Presence of a membrane-bound nucleus.

Question: Data showing that the bacteria were the first lineage to diverge from the common ancestor of all living organisms suggest that the Archaea and Eukarya are most closely related to each other than they are to bacteria.

Answer: True

Question: Which of the following statements about phylogenetic trees is true?

Answer: A paraphyletic group consists of a common ancestor and some of its descendants.

Question: Which molecule did Carl Woese study to produce his tree of life?

Answer: Ribosomal RNA

Question: What is lateral gene transfer?

Answer: Physical transfer of a gene from a species in one lineage to a species in another lineage.