Name: ______________________________ Period: ___________
BIRD BEAK ADAPTATIONS
Introduction: During his time on the Galapagos islands, Charles Darwin studied the
many finches on the islands. He was fascinated with the many kinds of beaks that the
finches had - each seemed to be specialized for eating a specific kind of food. His
studies of these birds and their beaks would lead Charles Darwin to pen his theory of
evolution and, in particular, the idea of adaptive radiation.
Adaptive radiation is the diversification of a group of organisms into
many different forms filling different ecological niches*.
*an ecological niche is the role and position that a species has in its environment. In other
words, how this species meets its needs for food and shelter.
Instructions: You have been given several “beaks” to use and several types of food.
The food items should be in bowls. You will test these beaks out against the food
provided using the steps below.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Select a beak and a food type.
Set a timer for 15 seconds on a cell phone.
During the 15 seconds, remove as many of the food items out of the bowl.
Afterward, count how many food items you successfully removed from the bowl.
Repeat until you have tested every beak against every food type.
Data: Fill out the following table with your results. The white boxes are where you
should write how many of that food type you were able to remove from the bowl with
that beak.
BEAK TYPE
FOOD TYPE 1
FOOD TYPE 2
FOOD TYPE 3
BIO BOUQUET 2020
Graphing Your Results: Using the data you collected, create a bar graph showing
how effective each beak type was at picking up each food type.
How do you do this?
Keep all three food type bars together
above each beak type. Then, color
code them differently. For example,
make all the Food Type 1 bars red.
Finally, make sure to include a key to
explain what color represents what
food type.
See the bar graph to the right for an
example. (note that the example only
has two food types per beak type)
Draw your graph below.
BIO BOUQUET 2020
Analysis Questions:
1. What type of beak was the best for each food item?
2. If an individual of a bird species has a poorly shaped beak, what might happen
to it and its beak genes? Do we expect this poorly shaped beak to be inherited
and survive in the population? Explain your answer.
3. Bird species A eats both grasshoppers and berries. Bird species B only eats
grasshoppers. Bird species C only eats berries. Over time, bird species B and C
both develop beaks that are highly specific to their food, but Bird species A’s
beak stays mostly the same. Explain what’s happening.
4. Is the ecological niche that bird species B and bird species C occupying the
same, or different? Explain.
5. A researcher notices that bird species B and bird species C are thriving in
comparison to bird species A, despite bird species A eating from two different
food resources. Why might bird species B and C have an advantage?
6. Panda bears are an excellent example of a creature that has
a very specific to its ecological niche. Pandas can only eat
bamboo and are very good at it. Because they’re so good at
eating bamboo, pandas have done well so far. However, due
to humans, the amount of wild bamboo is quickly decreasing.
How might this affect pandas?
BIO BOUQUET 2020
BIRD BEAK ADAPTATIONS KEY
Click here for the key.
BIO BOUQUET 2020