Evolution and Natural Selection

The purpose of this lab is to observe how variables in an organism’s environment can show adaptations over different periods of time and given different variables or changes to the environment or that organism. In this experiment it will show that manipulating the size of the island by 10 mm over a course of 100 years will show evidence of the Finches beak to grow or decrease in size because of their environment and their need to survive. The survivors will evolve while the others parish this experiment illustrates natural selection and evolution. Another variable or change to observe will be an increase or decrease in clutch size. Population of offspring over periods of time can largely be viewed effecting evolution and adaptation in this experiment. I believe the outcome of this experiment will depend totally on modification of increase or decrease, meaning whatever is being input and it is increasing size or numbers of the finches it will continue that same pattern increasingly higher than the opposition untouched. However if the input modifications are decreased that will decrease the size and population of finches below that of those on the opposing island. The materials for this experiment include a laptop computer with internet access and accessibility to the Phoenix student website where the evolution lab is located in the materials section.

In the first iteration of changes to be input was to the clutch size of the finches on Darwin’s island. The starting number for the clutch size is 10 for both islands, but there will not be any changes made to the subjects or variables on Wallace’s island they will be observed and compared independently with no changes. Next input of change to be made or adjust is the amount of years to look back at the subject it starts with 100 in this experiment 200 will be the period of time for this observation. After observing the changes made at 200 year time frame the size of the beaks little more than doubled in size the population as well increased, but both of these numbers were fewer than the opposing island Wallace where their finches population and beak size increased and exceeded Darwin’s finches in just about every year during the experiment.

Next iteration modifications were made to the initial beak size of the finches on Darwin’s island. Initially the Finches beaks were at 12 mm during this experiment the beak size is being increased 2 sizes to 14 mm to input and observe the results over 100 year period of time. After revisiting the results of this experiment over an 100 year period of time show that Darwin’s island of Finches population and beak size continued to this exceed that of Wallace’s island of Finches about at an even rate of 2% per year and the population increased higher than the opposing Finches on Wallace’s island.

My hypothesis went through because whatever the given input is at an increased rate that will affect the finches in an increase in beak size and population, but on the other hand if any of the inputted modifications are at an decrease the beaks still increase in size but the population falls below the finches on the Wallace’s island where the Finches stayed at their initial state of 12 mm. The data from both iterations show the numerical amount of finches that survived the changes in graph format and in numbers. It shows the population of finches on both islands in graph and numerical format. The experiment went well both times it was conducted. I do not see much that should be changed or what I would have done differently besides making better directions with lab introduction. It is mediocrely user friendly, but for someone new to science or not totally familiar it could have been a little less challenging if maybe something like a tutorial or an actual example was place in the materials or website. Besides that it was very helpful and gave some interesting looks at the way data is compiled over years. The one mistake I made early on was not having my browser updated so it took a little while for the lab to work I was wondering why I got several error messages till I ran the update.

In conclusion after modifying the clutch size of the Finches on Darwin’s island or lowering the amount of eggs and then increasing the beak size of the finches my hypothesis is correct on the side of increasing the modified areas will increase other numbers over a period of time. The only unexpected change was the beak size after 200 years after the clutch size was decreased the finches beak still grew and little over double in size, but just not as big as the other finches who kept the initial 10 eggs in a clutch. These changes have a minor effect on natural selection to the point that both times the population increased, but with fewer eggs came smaller numbers in population. The Finches with larger beaks resulted in an increased number in their population.