Is the rock pocket mice population an example of natural selection?
Interactive Assessment for Natural Selection and Adaptation Several questions are embedded within the short film The Making of the Fittest: Natural Selection and Adaptation, which uses the rock pocket mouse as a living example of natural selection.
How does natural selection affect mice?
Because predators could more easily spot the dark mice on light sand. The lighter mice were more likely to survive and have offspring. Natural selection favored the light mice. Over time, the population became light colored.
What adaptation in the pocket mouse living on dark volcanic rock has been selected for?
[NARRATOR:] On the desert sands, the rock pocket mouse blends in perfectly, its light- colored fur concealing it from predators. But on dark lava, the same fur makes the mouse stand out, attracting the many creatures that see it as food. [DR.
What is the selective pressure on rock pocket mouse populations?
What are two selective pressures for the for the rock pocket mouse population? Explain how that selection pressure caused this change in the mouse population? The lava caused the change in the mouse population because the light colored mice could not camouflage and therefore not survive or reproduce.
What is the type of natural selection for mice population?
Stabilizing Selection For example, in a population of mice that live in the woods, natural selection will tend to favor individuals that best blend in with the forest floor and are less likely to be spotted by predators.
What is natural selection examples?
A classic example of natural selection at work is the origin of giraffes' long necks. The ancestors of modern giraffes were animals similar to deer or antelope, with necks of ordinary length.
How does the natural selection work?
Natural selection is the process through which populations of living organisms adapt and change. Individuals in a population are naturally variable, meaning that they are all different in some ways. This variation means that some individuals have traits better suited to the environment than others.
Which best describes a result of natural selection?
So, the correct answer is 'Individuals with the most favorable traits survive and reproduce'
Which process is caused by natural selection?
One mechanism that drives evolution is natural selection, which is a process that increases the frequency of advantageous alleles in a population. Natural selection results in organisms that are more likely to survive and reproduce.
What specific trait was studied in the rock pocket mouse film?
Fur colorFur color, specifically melanism, is the trait they studied. Depending on the color of the substrate, fur color may or may not help rock pocket mice blend in with their environment.
How do selective pressures influence the evolution of a species?
Selective Pressure Leads to Evolution Gradually, the population changes, and genes that improve survival and reproduction will become more common, while genes that are disadvantageous to survival and reproduction will become more rare. This change in the genetic makeup of a population is called evolution.
What is the adaptation that increases the survival of the rock pocket mice on dark rocks?
Be sure to reemphasize with your class that mutation is random. The dark coloration in the rock pocket mouse did not arise because there was a lava flow. Rather, a random mutation proved adaptive to the mice living in areas of dark- colored volcanic rock.
Why are rat snakes an example of natural selection?
One example of recent evidence of natural selection is the rat snake. These snakes have recognizably different populations throughout different areas in Eastern North America. The most debatable topic is whether the rat snake should be a species or a subspecies.
Why are some mice light colored and some mice dark colored?
Why were some mice light colored and some mice dark colored? Some dark mice evolved to be as dark as the rock. The color change is occurred precisely where it would conceal the mice from hunters. The dark mice came to be because the DNA went through a random and spontaneous mutation.
How did mice evolve?
The common ancestor to mice and humans was an inconspicuous rodent-like mammal that scurried along the surface of the earth some 65 million years (myr) before present (BP). It had to be inconspicuous because the earth was ruled by enormous dinosaurs, many of whom would have eaten any small mammal that could be caught.
How were the deer mice adapted to their surroundings?
A final adaptation unique to deer mice is their ability to add red blood cells to their blood. To survive in the lowest mid-night temperatures of winter, deer mice add new red blood cells, thus increasing their hemoglobin content, which allows them to increase their metabolic rates.
What is Natural Selection?
This video introduces natural selection and the three key ingredients through which it effects change over time: the trait must vary in the population, it must be heritable, and individuals with a certain variation must have a reproductive advantage over those that do not.
How does natural selection affect population?
Natural selection can cause a trait variation to become more or less common in a population over time. Natural selection requires variability, heritability, and reproductive advantage. (Argumentation Practice) Gather evidence and write an argument that includes claim, evidence, and reasoning.
What are the three ingredients of natural selection?
Natural selection requires three ingredients: variability, heritability, and reproductive advantage. Next Module: Speciation.
How does adaptation occur?
Adaptation is the process by which populations become well-suited to their environments through natural selection acting on many traits over many generations. An adaptive trait evolves when increasingly advantageous variants repeatedly arise and become more common in subsequent generations through natural selection.
How does a simulation determine if an individual has an advantageous trait?
If an individual has an advantageous trait, then it is more likely to reproduce. Since traits pass from parents to offspring, then offspring are likely to inherit advantageous traits.
Why does the frequency of the fur color in the population change over time?
The frequency of the fur color in the population changes over time because mice whose fur matches their habitat are more likely to survive and reproduce. Project the simulation to the whole class, following the procedure and covering the talking points listed in the Teacher Guide.
How many examples of natural selection are there?
There are seven different examples, 5 non-human and 2 human. Use the examples you and your students will be comfortable with. Some examples meet all of the criteria for natural selection and others do not. A few are not necessarily straight-forward; one of the criteria must be inferred or may be open to interpretation. These “fuzzy” examples are great discussion-generators and can help tease out misconceptions about natural selection.