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Natural Selection Lab

Introduction
a. Dr. Robert Rothman writes about Darwins Finches in the Galapagos Islands
as the, the symbol of evolution in the Galapagos. He states that Darwin was not the
first to see the finches, nor did he understand their importance to evolutionary theory,
but they are one of the best examples of biological variation due to the process of
natural selection. P. Grant, author of Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches, also
describes the finches in terms of how their traits affect which birds live in which
environment. He says, Geographically isolated and without competition from similar
species, Darwin's finches developed distinctive anatomy (particularly beak size and
shape) and behaviors, with each species exploiting a unique feeding niche. This shows
that each finch has a unique trait that allows them to flourish in their specific
environment.
b. Hypothesis.
i. Hair clips will reproduce more and acquire more food. They will have the
highest population at the end of the experiment.
ii. I thought this because the way the teeth were set up on the hairclips
made it easy to grasp and hold onto seeds. Also, at the beginning of the
activity I thought we would be able to grab more than one seed at a time.
Even after I found out we could not, though, I still believed hair clips would
do the best.
Materials and Methods
a. The Materials used were:

1. Many sunflower seeds


2. 1 Dixie Cup per person
3. 5 Tongs (to start) (will need extras of all
materials in case of reproductive success)
4. 5 Hair Llips
5. 5 Chopsticks
6. 5 Clothespins
7. 5 Tweezers
8. 1 Chip clip
9. Desks/Tables/Flat surface
b. Steps:
1) Each student must have a dixie cup and a substantial
amount of sunflower seeds.
2) Spread the sunflower seeds across the entire flat surface in
front of the student (in this example we used long desks).
3) Assign each student a method of consumption (eg. the
tongs) that allows them to pick up the seeds in some manner. Start out
with an even number of each method if possible. In this example, we
began with 5 tongs, 5 hairclips, 5 chopsticks, 5 clothes pins, and 4
tweezers.
4) Make a table that lists the methods compared to the rounds
of seed collections. Always make sure the total amount of students at the
end of each round matches the initial total.
5) Use the table to calculate how many of each method or
species is left at the end of each round.
6) To start the round, set a timer for 30 seconds.
7) Allow students to pick up as many seeds as they can before
the time runs out. Students may only pick up one seed at a time and
deposit it into their stomach (the dixie cup).
8) After the time has run out, students must stop picking up the
seeds and count the amount that is in their cup

9) The teacher will ask who had the most seeds in their cup at
the end of the round by asking, Who had this many or higher? The
teacher chooses the amount to figure out who had the most.
10) The 3 students with the most will step up to the front.
11) The teacher will then repeat the process, this time finding
out who got the lowest amount.
12) The three students with the lowest amounts will also step up
to the front.
13) The three students who had the most seeds will reproduce
(not actually). This means theyre method will be passed on to the 3 losing
students.
14) The three losing students died and have now become the
offspring of the winning students. For example, if 3 tongs won and 3
tweezers lost, the 3 students with tweezers now have tongs.
15) The teacher can also decide if their will be a mutation in one
of the offspring (eg. one student was given a chip clip, although its parent
did not have a chip clip). This is randomly assigned by the teacher in the
middle of the process.
16) At the end of each round, after the students have died off
and reproduced, write in your table the new totals for each method.
17) This process can be repeated for any set number of times.
My class finished 5, but more or less can be performed. I suggest
completing at least 5 for best results.
Results
At the end of the experiment, the tweezers population had grown the most, and
tweezers and tongs had the most offspring. Both of these gradually increased
throughout the experiment, but tweezers had the most frequent success in

reproducing and would often reproduce more within one round. Chopsticks died
out in round three, and in the last round the clothespins only had one survivor.
Hair clips remained fairly steady throughout the experiment, but overall did
decrease in population with three out of five surviving. The chip clip only survived
for two rounds before dying out in round four and being produced as a mutation
in round two. See the corresponding table and graph at the end of the lab report.
Conclusion
a. I reject my hypothesis that hair clips would have the most offspring, acquire
the most food and have the highest population at the end.
b. While the hair clip population remained fairly steady through the experiment, it
did gradually decrease in population size. It was average in terms of survival, and
the tongs and tweezers actually gained more. Tweezers had the highest
population at the end.
c. One error I noticed in the experiment was that I as a hair clip was acquiring the
same amount of food as I had every other round, and in fact was gaining more,
but because the other methods were also gaining more then I was still at risk of
dying out because the number for the losing students would increase as
everyone continued to get better with their method. But if I was getting the same
amount of food as I always was and had managed to survive (flourishing actually
in the first couple of rounds) then why would I suddenly die out because I ate the
least amount of food? Other methods would soon run out of their food on their
desk and so they would turn to my food source and take my food. If the
reproductively successful methods had increased in offspring, that would surely

lower my food supply, but I was still able to eat just as much as I had before and
therefore had no reason to die (at least on the basis of food), so this experiment
does not account for that. It also does not take into account that all of the species
would most likely reproduce, not just the most successful species.
d. The professor reported that in every class the results of this experiment are
different. Therefore, it really depends on the students or experimenters ability to
handle the different methods. For instance, maybe the chopsticks would have
done better if every person that had chopsticks at first was very skilled with them
beforehand. I think this experiment is great for teaching the idea behind natural
selections, but the results apparently vary so much that it is not very reliable.
Discussion
a. The scientific method is the process used to identify a problem and find
possible answers to that problem. Many different fields use this process like
engineering, anthropology, and a most every industry has some kind of
department set up to use this sort of problem solution or problem answer
process.
b. To start this activity, we each came up with our own hypothesis about the
outcome of the experiment. We then conducted the experiment which allowed us
to collect, develop, and analyze data in order to reject, accept, or revise our
hypothesis.
c. Almost any situation in life involves the process of identifying a problem or
happening and then either figuring out how to solve it or most likely figure out
why it is happening and/or how to handle it. For instance, I can use this method

to help me better my relationships with other people. I can use it to acknowledge


where I stand with people, analyze the situation, the person, the circumstance,
and myself, and then use those aspects to solve problems or learn to handle a
situation with another person.
d. The theory of evolution by natural selection is based on the ideas of Malthus.
Malthus introduced the idea of competition, meaning that from on couple of a
species, a multitude of generations will follow. But while the population grows,
food supply remains the same so that not all offspring can survive. So Darwin
took this idea and applied it to natural selection and compared it to adaptation
and survival of the fittest, then creating these four underlying assumptions: A trait
must be inherited if natural selection is to act on it, natural selection cannot occur
without population variation in inherited characteristics, fitness is a relative
measure that changes as the environment changes, and natural selection can
act only on traits that affect reproduction.
e. This activity demonstrated evolution by natural selection by showing us how
the environment and your traits affect your ability to acquire food and how
favorable traits get passed on and as those populations increase then the
competition for food becomes much greater. This potentially could show how the
species with unfavorable attributes would die out from malnutrition and species
with favorable traits will expand in population size and thrive.

References
a. https://people.rit.edu/rhrsbi/GalapagosPages/DarwinFinch.html
"Land Birds." Darwin's Finches. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2017.

B. P. Grant, Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches (1986).

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