The Effect of Fire on the Coloring of Pygmy Grasshoppers

Taylor Deardorff

Honors 221 B
15 January 2014


Within a typical population, the coloring of pygmy grasshoppers can vary among gray, striped or
black colors. When you compare typical populations of grasshoppers, these same colors are found in the
separate habitats, but in differing proportions. This proportional difference appears to correspond with the
environment. In habitats that recently experienced a fire, the proportion of black grasshoppers is
significantly higher than in populations that have not experienced a fire (DS 2).
Two hypotheses could explain this phenomenon. First, the grasshoppers could have a sort of
phenotypic plasticity; that is, in this case, the grasshoppers could sense the color of their habitat, and
could choose to display whichever color as to best camouflage themselves from predators. Another
explanation could be that grasshoppers come into the world genetically programmed, from their parents,
to be a certain color. With the first hypothesis, the difference in proportions of black grasshoppers among
different populations could be explained by the colors of the habitat, and the grasshoppers ability to
sense the color scheme. With the second hypothesis, a difference in genetic traits would explain the
difference in proportions. DS 3 shows us that a strong, positive, linear relationship between the color of a
parent and the color of their offspring exists. This tells us that grasshoppers cannot advantageously
change color after birth; if their parents were black, they will be black. We can conclude that phenotypic
plasticity, however helpful in theory it would be to the grasshoppers, is incorrect in this situation. But DS
3s strong linear relationship supports the idea of a genetic, inherited trait causing the difference in
proportions.
This all suggests that evolution by natural selection determines the colors of pygmy grasshoppers.
An unburned habitat is lush and green, making it best for striped or gray grasshoppers to blend in. There
would be some, but very few, black grasshoppers present in this population, because predators could
easily spot them against the green backdrop. However, when the environment becomes charred after a
fire, black individuals would be given an advantage. They could now camouflage themselves in the
environment better than their gray or striped counterparts. This would cause black grasshoppers to
increase in number, and gray or striped grasshoppers numbers to dwindle as predators easily picked them
out over the blackened scenery. Therefore, this pattern of differences in proportions relies on the


environment, but also on many other factorsreproduction, genetics, and predationin a way, the
driving forces of natural selection. DS 4 supports this conclusion. It shows us that as the environment gets
darker (more black) after a fire, black grasshoppers survive predation by surrogate predators (students
finding the grasshoppers) for much longer. However, we are missing evidence that this holds true for real
predators acting in the wild. This corroborating evidence would further strengthen our conclusion.
However, DS 5 also supports this conclusion. It shows us that as a burned habitat recovered after
a fire (i.e., became more green than black) over a 4-year period, the proportion of black grasshoppers
slowly declined. The black grasshoppers, which had an advantage when their habitat was charred, slowly
lost that advantage as their environment flourished and they, instead of gray or striped grasshoppers,
again became a main target of predation. As the environment changed and black-ness transformed into
deleterious trait rather than an advantageous one, the gene began lessening its dominance in the
grasshoppers gene pool.
By simply reading the description of the differences between black pygmy grasshoppers, with
their high proportion in recently burned areas, and gray and striped pygmy grasshoppers, one may wonder
if this species could be on the brink of a speciation event. It would be interesting to see if pygmy
grasshoppers could divide into separate species based on the presence or absence of fire in their
environment. To test this, we would need a large, random sample of pygmy grasshoppers from a typical
population. Then, we would split them into two groups and place them into controlled (i.e., same amount
of food, rain, altitude, etc.) habitats for ten years. These two populations would not be able to intermix
genetically whatsoever. The variable being manipulated would be fire; one populations habitat would
never experience fire, while the other habitat would burn every 1-2 years. At the end of the ten-year
study, scientists could place grasshoppers from the different plots together, and see if they would mate at
all. If they did, the scientists could see if the offspring the grasshoppers begat were viable, or able to
survive for a determined amount of time. If the answer to these two questions was found to be no, a
speciation event would have likely taken place.

Data Set 2 (DS 2)