Faculty Biology Olympiad – 2020

On February 27, the annual faculty olympiad was held at the biology faculty. Of 16 participants — 13 were first-year students!
The olympiad results are shown in the table. As is customary at our olympiads, scores for each question were recalculated so that the participant who gave the best answer received 20 points, and the one who gave the worst answer (for that question) received 0 points. If someone had answered all questions better than anyone else, they would have received 100 points; 0 would have been received by the participant who answered all questions worst of all. The screenshot from Calc (the LibreOffice spreadsheet application) shows an example of the formulas used for this calculation.
olimp2020
Five tasks were used. All tasks were reviewed by their authors, who used whatever scoring system was most convenient for them. The tasks (except one, which the author printed out himself) are presented below. If the task authors send the scoring criteria or correct answers, these materials will be added to this page.
The task authors noted that the overall level of responses was very weak. Nevertheless, since most participants are first-year students, one may hope that they will improve their level over time.
Task No. 1 (Associate Professor K. V. Kot, Department of Biochemistry)
Name as many carbohydrate metabolic pathways as possible. Briefly describe these processes (you may use a metabolic map or diagram).
How are these processes related to one another?
Task No. 2 (Senior Lecturer M. O. Kravchenko, Department of Zoology and Animal Ecology)
Adaptation to life on land in many cases requires substantial restructuring of aquatic organisms. What adaptations to terrestrial life arose in representatives of different groups? Which of these adaptations are similar across representatives of different groups, and which differ, and why?
Task No. 3 (Senior Lecturer Ye. O. Kiosya, Department of Genetics and Cytology)
Photographs 1–10 show animal food products homologous to certain organs / parts / structures of the human body. Indicate what these products are homologous to, and what functions these organs / parts / structures perform in the human body. The more precise the description, the higher the score.

№	№	Name (in the human body)
1
...	...	...

Task No. 4 (Associate Professor N. Ye. Volkova, Department of Genetics and Cytology) Suppose that red and blue pigments mix to give the purple color characteristic of wild-type petunia petals. These pigments are the products of two different biosynthesis pathways (in the figure, ‘white’ means that the compound is colorless). The red pigment is formed from a yellow intermediate compound. Normally, there is too little of this compound to color the petals. When it accumulates to a certain concentration, one of the intermediates of the third metabolic pathway can convert into the yellow compound of the red pigment biosynthesis pathway. The letters A–E designate enzymes that catalyze individual biosynthesis reactions. The genes encoding them are not linked and are designated by the same letters. Wild-type alleles of these genes are dominant, and their recessive alleles result in loss of enzymatic activity. What genotypes must the pure-breeding petunia lines have so that the following ratios of offspring could be observed in the F2 from crosses of their representatives: A) 9 with purple flowers : 3 with green : 4 with blue B) 9 with purple flowers : 3 with red : 3 with blue : 1 with white C) 13 with purple flowers : 3 with blue D) 9 with purple flowers : 3 with red : 3 with green : 1 with yellow? (The answer should consist of the genotypes of the four parental pairs A, B, C, D and the justifications).

Task No. 5 (Head of the Department of Botany and Plant Ecology Yu. H. Hamulya) (Participants received 15 samples of seeds, buds, etc., and were required to identify their botanical name, systematic position, etc. The samples cannot be placed on this page, and Yuriy Hariiovych printed out the task text himself.) The tasks were collected, the olympiad was conducted, and the scores received from the task authors were recalculated by Professor of the Department of Zoology and Animal Ecology D. A. Shabanov.

All participants should be commended for their courage, and first-year student Anastasia Kryvaltceva, second-year student Yevhen Kostenko, and first-year student Pavlo Radchenko should be congratulated on their victory. In the next stage of the olympiad, Anastasia Kryvaltceva and Yevhen Kostenko must participate, and if either of them declines — Pavlo Radchenko.