In 1977, an island west of Ecuador with the name of Daphne Major experienced a severe drought. This drought on the small island in the Galapagos caused a huge disruption in the island’s ecosystem. Because of the drought, Chamaesyce and Portulaca seeds were no longer able to survive on the island. These were the medium ground finches main source of food. Without any more Chamaesyce and Portulaca seeds, the only food left for the finches to eat were Tribulus and Cactus plants. Since each of these plants is about 3-5 mm long, the finches with small beaks died of starvation because they were not able to eat the seeds left on the island. This brings up the question “How did some finches survive?” The finches that were able to survive had bigger …show more content…
Only larger seeds were available for the finches to eat. This was a problem because many of the finches had very small beaks and simply could not eat the food that was left. However, some finches who had large beaks were able to crack open the seeds and eat, these were the only finches that survived. When the next wet season came around and the finches started mating again, all of their offspring had big beaks because there were no finches left with small beaks. Before 1977, the island of Daphne Major was home to finches of all different beak sizes. All different sizes of finches were able to survive on the island because there was no competition for food. There was a surplus of food and there was enough for all the finches to eat enough and feed their babies. But, after a huge drought occured in 1977, the island’s ecosystem took a huge loss and there was close to no food left for the finches to survive. The amount of Chamaesyce plant went from having a population of 60 plants to 0 in the dry season of 1977. Then when all of the soft easy to digest plants were no longer available on the island, the only food left for the finches to eat were tribulus and cactus plants. But not all of the finches were able to eat this because some of their beaks simply just were not big enough to eat the tribulus seeds. In the field not of gf #69, it is observed that the finch who has