Evolution Lab
Sherrie Hamby
BIO/101
January 18, 2012
James Marlowe

Evolution Lab
Evolution is a necessary stage and part of life. It’s what has shaped and define all living organisms on this planet. Evolution has helped all population and organisms respond to change in their habitat. The way they have survived is by passing on certain traits that have worked on keeping them alive it is known as adaptation. I wanted to see what would happen if you changed the eating habits of finches. What effect this will have on the evolution of life on this island?
Materials
All of the materials that you will need for this experiment are: a computer, pencil, paper for notes, and access to the Evolution Lab on the student website for the University of Phoenix.
Introduction
First, I went to the student web site and used the Evolution Lab website for the University of Phoenix. What I wanted to do is run two different scenarios to determine how much effect food sources have on finches. The test has seven different variables that you can change and those are beak size, variance, heritability, clutch size, island size, population, and precipitation. The test is simulated on two different islands one is named Darwin’s Island and the other is named Wallace’s Island.

Experiments
The first experiment that I ran I chose to set my parameters for Darwin’s and Wallace’s island the same. The parameters are: initial beak size 12.0 mm, heritability 0.7, variance 1.0, clutch size 10.0 eggs, precipitation 20.0 cm, population 200.0 birds, and island size 0.5 km. This experiment was simulated over a hundred years. I chose to change beak size to 20.0 mm, precipitation to 14.0 cm, and island size to 1.0km. The second experiment that I ran I chose to set my parameters for Darwin’s and Wallace’s island the same. These are the parameters initial beak size 12.0 mm, heritability 0.7, variance 1.0, clutch size 10.0 eggs, precipitation 20.0 cm, population 200.0 birds, and island size 0.5 km. This experiment was simulated over a hundred years. I chose to change beak size to 20.0 mm, precipitation to 14.0 cm, and island size to 1.0km.
Data
When I ran the experiment the data that I received was very interesting. I changed the precipitation from 20.0 cm to 14.0 cm. Over the span of a hundred years their beaks grow on Darwin’s island to 24.89 cm and on Walla’s island they grow to 24.58 cm. On Darwin’s island it seems that their beak sizes grow a cm every 15 to 20 years +/- 0.3. On Wallace’s island the beak size grows on average of 1 cm every 15 years +/- 0.3. There were big differences on Wallace’s island from 2022 to 2051 the Finch’s beak size stayed at 21.0 cm; it took them 29 years to grow a whole cm. The population on the islands dramatically increased the first 3 years, after that it steadily increased by the 1000 every 10 to 13 years. On Darwin’s island they ended up with 1541 finches and in Walla’s island they end it up with 1364 the last year. When I ran the second experiment I changed the precipitation from 20.0 cm to 79.0 cm, the ratio from soft seeds to hard seeds changed making soft seeds more dominant. Over the span of a hundred years their beaks shrunk on Darwin’s island to 18.79 cm and on Wallace’s island they shrunk to 18.56 cm. On Darwin’s island it seems that their beak size shrunk a cm every 45 years +/- 0.5. On Wallace’s island there beak size shrunk on average of a cm every 70 years +/- 0.2. The population on the islands dramatically increased the first 3 years, after that it steadily stayed the same around 1200 to 1487. On Darwin’s island they ended up with 1387 finches and in Wallace’s island they end it up with 1220 the last year.
Conclusion
I have found lots of interesting facts from my finding. I believe precipitation has a lot to do with the size and population of a living organism. The first experiment I performed the precipitation was set low at 14 cm. The ratio from soft seeds to hard seeds changed making hard seeds more dominant. That made the finches beaks grow longer in order to adapt to the environment. Which allowed them to survive and reproduce, making evolution possible. The second experiment that was performed the precipitation was set high at 79.0 cm. The ratio from soft seeds to hard seeds changed making soft seeds more dominant. This made the finches beaks shrink over time and population increased the first three years then leveled out. The increase in softer seeds aloud the evolution for a shorter beak over time. I believe my hypothesis is explained by the changes in food sources. Over time there beak size changed to adapt to the living conditions they were in which allowed them to eat more and reproduce. This increased the population size making them successful in adapting. I believe I could of improved my experiment by changing the island size to see how much of an effect that would have on population and food source. I have concluded that evolution is the key to survival. If your environment changes you have to adapt to survive. In this experiment the finches adapted to their environment and food source, which allowed them to evolve. Making them able to reproduce and survive. I believe my hypothesis was accepted because the finches did evolved and population increased. The factors that I used determined natural selection by adapting the finches to survive.

Reference
Evolution Lab. (2001). Retrieved from http://www.biologylabsonline.com/axia/EvolutionLab/