Name: Ravi P.Unit: Biology, Evolution

Natural Selection Lab

Introduction:

Charles Darwin is a naturalist around 1800s that discovered the theory of evolution. His observation of evolution occurred when he made is voyages around the world. The specific animals that occurred to him the most are the finches that he first discovered in South America, and then found many variations at many different places. As a scientist instinct he brought many of these varieties back to his lab and did a study on it. In that case he found out that they were somehow similar, but that their beaks were different. After many years of studying he understood that the finches’ beaks were formed different was based on their environment, and the food that they found there. He then drew out the “tree of life” that each intersection point was where their ancestors and each line divisions were the starting point of developing into different species. However, that is how he come up of evolution which is processed by the processed of Natural selection. ( See class handout)

Evolution and Natural Selection:

Evolution is the changes in the characteristics of population from one generation to the next. This leads to the formation of new species, which carries a favorable characteristic to adapt to the changing environment. The purpose of evolution is to eliminate the unfavorable genes or traits that are unfit, because their physical element does not help them to survive. Evolution is establish by a process called Natural Selection, which is the process which organisms in a population that have physical or behavioral traits that better suited to their current environment are more likely to survive, and to reproduce than individuals without traits less well suited to the current environment.

“Darwin stated that natural selection is process in five steps:

1. Species produce sexually for more offspring than can survive.2. There is variation in inherited traits (alleles) among unique organism within population. 3. There is competition. There is a struggle for survival- some organisms will survive and reproduce

more, some will die and reproduce less in any local environment.4. Organisms with traits better suited to their environment (adaptation) tend to survive and

reproduce more successfully than less fit organism. This is Natural selection or Survival of the fittest.

5. The favorable traits (alleles) that aloe organisms to survive and reproduce become more common each successive generation are selected by nature. Traits in a population this change overtime, this is evolution.” (see class powerpoint)

Natural selection is a long term process that does not happened in one generation but many generations. It is selecting the fittest genes to reproduce and then increase its population. As environments are changing, the animals need some kind of specific characteristics to be able to survive. This might be because of the food levels, the temperature, or the lack of water, which requires a

characteristic to compete with others. An example of this is the giraffes: at first they have short necks, but as environment changes, their foods grow on higher levels. This causes giraffes to produce mutant offspring, due to the genes changes .i.e. long necks. There are now competition of the long necks and the short neck giraffes for food that is on higher elevation. Therefore the long necks have more benefit, because of the flexibility to reach up to their foods, and eventually the short necks giraffes died out. This indicated that the long neck giraffes passed their “long neck” genes to their offspring, which started the current giraffes right now.

The experiment consists of the prey which is shown by the Twinkle; demonstrate five points of the theory of evolution. Heritable variation exists within a species concerns with the colors of twinkle that are presented on the cloths. There is competition for limited resources within a species; this shows how each color of species are in one place, and how the predators “high school students” pick the most favorable colors. More offspring are born than can survive to reproduce, this concerns with the offspring that are produce be each of every color that is left, but eventually they would get eaten. Some variations are more helpful than others in the struggle to survive and reproduce, the browns twinkle have the most advantage, because most of us doesn’t seems to bother with it. Therefore it have a greater advantage of not getting eaten. The last one is: helpful variations will become more common overtime; eventually replacing the less helpful variation, as said on earlier, the browns replaces some colors that are a standout i.e. green. Browns are then very common and they reproduce more than others.

The predators (students) also experience with some competition, i.e. one person might be eyeing on a specific color, but then other people might take it, and another example is that there might be earthquakes, or the predators might be hard to reach or pick up, because its in a specific place. Our chopsticks work also improve overtime, first we struggle to pick up a twinkle, but as we observe each other we found out that if you put your finger closely to the end it will help to pick up easily. This is also the motivations to pick things up easier and also to compete with other teams, because we told each other what to do, and tell people techniques of chopsticks. Genetic evolution and cultural evolution is very important to human right now. However if there is life without cultural information, we wouldn’t have computers, cars, education, etc, which would make our life very hard and complicated to live. For example, if there are no cars, then people would suffer to walk to get to the supermarkets to get food. Identical to the theory of passing the genetics down to the offspring, it will help the future generation to be more comfortable and also flexible to live in its environment.

Hypothesis:

If the light is switched off and the background of the envronment is orange, then the most stand out color would be the most picked on, which is likely to be the color green and yellow.

Variables:

Dependant variables: numbers of twinkles.Independent variables: the twinkles and its twinkle offspringControl variables: numbers of predators, the turns, and the switched off lights.

Diagram:

Figure 1: varieties of twinkle on the table, while a predator is trying to pick it up with the chopsticks.

Data collection:

Twinkle’s generation vs. the predators

Table: 1

Colors gen. 0 gen.1 gen.2 gen.3 (final)

orange 10 7 14 10 20 1yellow 10 3 6 0 0 0red 10 6 12 10 20 14blue 10 4 8 0 0 0brown 10 5 10 8 10 14green 10 5 10 2 4 0

The changes of the population in different varieties of the twinkles, each generation is different, and as presented some are extinct.

Data processing:

Table 2:

Percentage of twinkle’s generation vs. the predators

Colors gen. 0 gen.1 gen. 2 gen. 3 finalorange 100% 14% 20% 2% 1.70%yellow 100% 60% 0 0 0%red 100% 12% 20% 23% 23%blue 100% 80% 0 0 0%brown 100% 100% 14% 23% 23%green 100% 100% 0 0%

Percent of twinkles increase

g1 g2 g3 final0

5

10

15

20

25

orangeredbrown

Figure 2: this graph indicates 3 twinkles that survive throughout the process of the lab.

Conclusion and Evaluation:

Some colors of twinkle have a selective advantage when “hunted” are predators. The color brown will be less noticeable than other colors. Due to the orange environment and the light switched off, brown is the most neutral color that most of the predators’ eyes cannot seem to notice. However the color green is the most stand out, because predators seem it as a glowing color in the dark, and in the orange environment. Therefore many predators seem to be attractive to the color.

The data of the evidences does showed that the most stand out color is the most picked on. As in table one it showed that the color yellow and blue are the first one to be extinct. This does showed that they are the most disadvantage. Figure two also showed the colors that survive through the process how it increases and decreases. It showed that the most standout color is orange, which is decreasing very quickly. This is also very important to the cultural and genetic evolution of modern day humans. If we do not grown and adapt to the environment, everything that we do would be very hard, we cant adapt to the wheather the food, or anything that we are not used to. We would also have a lot of organisms that we don’t need to use. Therefore it is very important to have evolution.

These problems are caused by the lack of light, the chopsticks techniques, and also the environment’s physical elements. By these problems, it is an effective way of showing the students about the competition between themselves, and the environment are like. The darkness is also another way of showing how hard it is for the predators to find the prey, and that they need to look hard for it. The physical elements of the environment and the used of chopsticks are very challenging, because of how

it’s hard to pick the twinkles up, and the cloths are very slippery, therefore it shows the challenges of the competitors.