Natural Selection Report Angelica Norton ePortfolio Signature Assignment ANTH 1020, Spring 2015 Introduction a. Charles Darwin spent five weeks on the Galapagos Islands and found something puzzling. Darwin found that the finch species were all different but somehow related. By using his collected information Darwin hypothesized each beak of the finches determined which beak nature favored. Peter and Rosemary Grant did experiments; they’ve gone to Galapagos Island to study the finches in the years of 1973-1985. They’ve found that in droughts, finches with large beaks are favored because they used their beaks to break larger seeds that could grow in dry conditions. In rainy weather, finches with small beaks were in favor of nature, because they could collect tiny seeds compared to large beaks. b. I predict tongs are going to collect the most sunflower seeds because they have a pocket to secure the seed. i. The other beaks compared to tongs don’t have extra room for the sunflower seed to be secured. Tongs are large and are meant to grasp big portions of food. Materials and Method a. The materials used for this activity can be purchased at local grocery or drug stores. a. Pack of sunflower seeds b. Small cups to collect the sunflower seeds c. Food tongs d. Clothes pins e. Large hair clips f. Binder clips g. Chopsticks or skewer sticks h. Chip clips i. Tweezers j. Small hair clips k. Paper to record data l. Timer b. With seven (7) groups of three or more (3+), each group will represent a beak. Spread the sunflower seeds evenly on a large table. Each person will have a cup to collect the sunflower seeds one by one. You may only pick up one sunflower seed at a time! Using a timer set the timer to one (1) minute. Within one minute, each individual will use their beak to collect sunflower seeds until the timer goes off. Once the time goes off, everyone counts their sunflower seeds they’ve collected. The top three (3) lowest sunflower collectors will lose their beaks and be replaced with the top three (3) highest beaks. Example: The three individuals with the lowest collected sunflower seeds have the following beaks: chopstick, tweezers, and chip clip. The top three highest collected sunflower seeds have the following beaks: tongs, tweezers, and large hair clip. The lowest beaks get taken away and their beaks are replaced or reproduced with the highest beaks. Tweezers were in both groups, so tweezers stay while chopstick and chip clip are replaced with tongs and large hair clip. This process continues for five rounds. If any of the beaks go extinct you may add small hair clips for a mutation. In the process collect your data using a table; there will be five (5) rounds for the activity. Results a. Collected Data from experiment b. Bar Graph of Data 8 7 6 Beginning 5 Round 1 4 Round 2 3 Round 3 Round 4 2 Round 5 1 0 Tongs Chip Clips Lg. Hair Clips Binder Tweezers Clothes Clips Pins Chop sticks Sm. Hair Clips c. The results that took place in the classroom can be seen with the data and the graph. In the beginning the beaks were given out at random selection. Almost all of the beaks stay near their beginning number. As you can see, clothespins almost went extinct, so a mutation occurred, the small hairclips. In the bar graph you can see small hairclips showed for rounds 2, 3, 4, and 5. Conclusion a. My prediction that tongs will collect the most sunflower seeds is supported from this experiment. b. As you can see in the bar graph, the tongs had the most successful beaks compared to other beaks. On round 2 and 4 it had the most and highest count of beaks, but the other rounds like 3 and 5, it evened with chip clips, large hair clips, and tweezers. c. Possible errors that could impact the results is speed, it depends on the individual and their beak, if they have a beak that’s able to collect a sunflower seed with no problem, it depends on how fast they are willing to collect the seeds. Some individuals may be slow, moderate, or fast. d. Replication of this experiments varies on the individuals, the individuals that had tongs for beaks were fast and competitive. There are other beaks that neared the same amount of beaks compared to tongs. Discussion a. The scientific method is a step-by-step research that answers an educated question or hypothesis. Before conducting a research or experiment, it’s important to do research. Doing research will help guide your experiment to others tested hypothesis. After doing research, you should create an experiment that will strongly test your hypothesis. While you’re conducting the experiment you should be collecting data. At the end of the experiment you compare your hypothesis to the data. If the data supports or rejected your hypothesis, you can conduct the same experiment or readjust b. There are endless fields that use the scientific method: i. Dentists, if you have a gum disease the dentist, can track back to where you started getting the disease and can help you minimize the growth of the disease. It may work for the patient and it may not. ii. Food marketers, they’re always conducting experiments all the time. To see which ingredient sells more than the other. c. The experiment showed my prediction was tested with the data chart and I was able to analyze the data, I was able to determine if my prediction was falsifiable or testable. In the end I concluded my hypothesis was supported, in the experiment I did, it may not be the same with other experiments, testing it again could give the similar or different results. d. The theory of evolution by natural selection is process that happens in environments. “All species are capable of producing offspring at a faster rate than food supplies increase” (pg. 40). With that in mind, how are all of the species are going to be able to live? The answer is they don’t, not all species are going to make it with low food supplies. Competition happens in all environments and it depends on what traits species have that will either help them survive in the environment or will barley allow them to obtain food. Depending on the environment, species with favorable traits will gain reproductive success, meaning the unfavorable species will decrease in population and the favorable species will produce offspring. As favorable traits accumulate through producing, a mutation will occur. The adaptation to the environment will also influence the species. e. This experiment was a good activity to show the theory of natural selection. It had a range of beaks that varied in each round. Depending on the beak and the individual, different amount of effort needed to gain a sunflower seed. The shape and size of the sunflower seed determined which beak worked best to be gathered. The pace on the individuals also determined which beak reproduced successfully. The faster the individual who gathered the seeds, the more beaks of the successful one. In round 2, a mutation occurred. It was due to favored traits being collected into one species over time. In this experiment, nature favored tongs; therefore they produce more offspring than the other beaks. The others did well except for less favored beaks; binder clips and clothespins, their numbers decreased towards the end. References Grant, Peter R. "Finch Beak Data Sheet." PBS. PBS, 1986. Web. 07 Feb. 2015. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/6/l_016_01.html>. "Adaptive Radiation: Darwin's Finches." PBS. PBS, 2001. Web. 04 Feb. 2015. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/6/l_016_02.html>. Jurmain, Robert, Lynn Kilgore, and Wenda Trevathan. Human Origins. 9th ed. Mason: Cengage Learning, 2013. Print.