1. The Phylum Chlorophyta is thought to be the ancestors of the land plants. Why is this the case?

2. The ancestral land plants faced many problems in making their transition to a land environment. What problems did they face?  How did the bryophytes solve the problems? How did the vascular plants solve the problems?

3. What type of life cycle do land plants have? In the bryophytes, which portion of the life cycle is dominant? Which portion of the life cycle is dominant in the vascular plants?

4. In the evolution of land plants, how are the bryophytes and vascular plants related to one another? Why is this thought to be the case?

5. Compare the gametophytes of the liverwort, Marchantia, and the true mosses. How are they the same? How are they different?

6. Compare the sporophytes of Marchantia and mosses. How are they the same? How are they different?

7. Where does meiosis occur in these two bryophytes? Where does fertilization occur?

8. Describe the structures and the processes that are involved in asexual reproduction in Marchantia.

9. Compare spore dispersal in Marchantia with that of the common mosses. What structures are involved in spore dispersal.

10.       The cyanobacteria were previously named the blue green algae. Why was this older common name appropriate for this group?

11.       If your grade in this course depended on finding and collecting cyanobacteria in two habitats, where would you look for specimens?

12.       Instead of applying nitrogen fertilizer to rice fields, farmers in some areas of the world put the water fern, Azolla, into the flooded fields containing young rice plants. The rice plants grow as well as they do when commercial fertilizers are added. Why is this true?

13.       If you entered a time machine and traveled 3 billion years into the past, what is one life form that you have studied in BIO 12 that would be present? The atmosphere of 3 billion years ago contains no free oxygen. (Fortunately you remembered your oxygen mask.) What activity of the life form you encountered will eventually change the primitive atmosphere to one containing oxygen?

14.       What are two processes that are hypothesized to have occurred in the evolution of prokaryotic cells to eukaryotic cells? According to the hypothesis, how do the processes produce the components of the eukaryotic cell?

15.       How does the animal life cycle differ from the life cycle of  freshwater green algae (member of the Phylum Chlorophyta) such as Volvox?

16.       If meiosis does not occur when a Chlamydomonas zygote "germinates" but otherwise the life cycle proceeds through the usual steps, what would result?

17.       How do members of the Phylum Chlorophyta differ from cyanobacteria (besides basic cell structure)? How are they similar to the cyanobacteria?

18.       Which of the examples of the Phylum Chlorophyta are colonies, which are filaments, and which are unicellular? Which are motile? Which show oogamy?

20.       Ulva and Chara are atypical members of the Phylum Chlorophyta. Why are they placed into the Phylum?

21.       Why are Ulva and Chara atypical members of the Phylum Chlorophyta?

22.       The gametophytes and sporophyte of Ulva look identical. What means could be used to tell which is which?

23.       Ulva has a sporic life cycle. How can this life cycle be distinguished from a zygotic or a gametic life cycle?

24.       Chara is commonly called "stonewort". Why does it have this common name?

25.       Spirogyra undergoes both sexual and asexual reproduction. Describe how Spirogyra carries out both of these processes.

26.       Some members of the Phylum Phaeophyta are commonly called kelps; others are called rockweeds. How are these algae different? What is an example of each?

27.       Harvesting kelps is a business on the coast of California. Why are kelps harvested?

28.       Members of the Phylum Phaeophyta have a cellulose framework in the cell walls, but it is the "other" materials in their cell walls that accounts for some of the uses of these algae. What is the "other" material and what is this material used for?

29.       The two genera of the Phylum Phaeophyta that were used as examples in BIO 12 are Fucus and Laminaria. If you encountered these genera at the coast, what part of the life cycle would be visible to the naked eye in each? How do you know?

30.       Of what use to the alga are the air bladders found in some members of the Phylum Phaeophyta?

31.       Why do kelps and rockweeds have holdfasts?

32.       Why is the Phylum Bacillariophyta important to people commerically? Why is it important ecologically?

33.       How are members of the Phylum Bacillariophyta similar to members of the Phylum Phaeophyta? How are they different?

34.       Pennate and centric diatoms have different symmetries, but, in addition to this seemingly minor morphological difference, they differ from one another in several important ways. What are these?

35.       Compare the “feeding stage” of the organisms in the following phyla:  Zygomycota, Ascomycota, and Basidiomycota in terms of appearance (macroscopically and microscopically), relative chromosome number, and food supply.

36.       Some fungi carry out asexual reproduction. In which of the phyla of fungi covered in BIO 12 (Zygomycota, Ascomycota, and Basidiomycota) does asexual reproduction occur and what structures in each is involved in this process?

37.       For the Phyla Zygomycota, Ascomycota, and Basidiomycota, the name of the Phylum is derived from the name of the sexual reproductive structures. Explain why this is the case.

38.       Compare the Ascomycota and Basidiomycota in terms of the cell which produces spores in sexual reproduction, the appearance of at least two of the macroscopic sexual reproductive structures in which the spore producing cells are formed, and the relative chromosome number of the hyphae which comprise the macroscopic sexual reproductive structures.

39.       Fertilization is part of sexual reproduction, and there are two stages to this process: plasmogamy and karyogamy. Describe where plasmogamy and karyogamy occur in the Phyla Zygomycota, Ascomycota, and Basidiomycota.

40        In what type of environment would you find the following organisms: Rhizopus, Tuber, Morchella, Aspergillus, a shelf fungus, a stinkhorn.

41.       What are at least two examples of how the following groups have an impact on the lives of people: Phylum Zygomycota, deuteromycetes, Phylum Ascomycota, Phylum Basidiomycota?

42.       Two organisms we studied in this section of the course are referred to my common names: lichen and deuteromycetes. Why are these groups not place into a Phylum?

43.       Why is it thought that many of the deutermycetes are probably ascomycetes or closely related to the ascomycetes? If this is the case, why are these fungi not placed in the Phylum Ascomycota?

44.       The photobionts of lichens actually grow more rapidly if they are removed from the lichen and grown in culture. And, in a sense, the mycobiont parasitizes the photobiont. Explain why the relationship between the mycobiont and photobiont might be considered parasitism instead of mutualism. Why do biologists call relationship of the mycobiont and photobiont mutualism?

45.       In what ways are lichens of ecological significance? How do people use lichens?