Finch in a Pinch Lab Essay

Some finches inherited longer beaks, this allowed them to open more seeds and access more food. Inheriting the longer beaks is not proven, but any animal inherited traits just like humans. So gathering this information we can conclude that they inherit their long beaks. Having a long beak was crucial in order for the finches to survive through the drought. Two finches, for example, that survived the drought, had bigger beak sizes. Gf69 had a beak length of 13.01 millimeters and weighed 13.41 grams. Another finch that survived the drought had a beak length of 10.97 and weighed about 12 grams. Yet a finch that didn’t survive had a beak length of 9.92 millimeters. All 10 finches that survived through the drought had longer beaks that averaged to 11.939 millimeters. This is a large beak size compared to a bird that did not survive with a beak length of 7.21 millimeters. A bigger beak length allows a finch to pry open harder seeds unlike the finches with smaller beaks. Some field notes were taken from the Grants, and they told us that a finch was spotted struggling to open a seed. For this reason finches with longer beaks were able to get food more easily than finches with smaller beaks. In conclusion, some finches had a longer lifespan than other for the reason that they had longer beaks. On top of that they were able to survive the

Darwin has listed different names for each bird, they are all variations of Finches, apparently descended from a common ancestor. However, each bird has a different length beak and many are differently shaped to allow them to more efficiently eat the available fodder. Coincidentally, Mr. Darwin failed to catalog specifically where each bird came from and had to ask the ship’s captain to supply this information along with his collection to Mr. Gould for identification and cataloging. An interesting part of the conversation between Mr. Darwin and the ship’s captain is the captain’s argument for the fixity of species, that each one was created by God exactly the way it was, and placed on each island, and that it is heresy to say that they came to be there any other way.

As seen with Anolis, single species of organisms have the ability to undergo adaptive radiation and become new species by filling niches in a given environment. This is prevalent not only in Anolis, but other model organisms as well, such as finches, sticklebacks, and cichlids. All of these organisms have gone through the similar mechanisms and processes to evolve into different species. Alike to Anolis, they have gone through reproductive isolation, adaptation, and convergent evolution. Due to a poor fossil record of Anolis, the other model organisms may give better outlook on how they have diverged overtime. Further investigations on all of these organisms and their evolutionary mechanisms would not only give better a better idea of ecological speciation, but more comprehension on the origin of all

Assignments 1: I developed a hypothesis to predict that the island with the finches with the larger beak will be able to adapt more rapidly to their surrounding and handle the hard seeds of their island verses the island with the finches with the smaller beaks. I left the primary beak size on Darwin

Over the last several years, evolution has been playing an increasingly important role in determining how various species are evolving. This is because ecology will have an impact on how quickly a particular organism is able to adapt (with: the unique challenges for a particular environment). To determine the effect that this is having requires carefully examining different species over the course of many years. This will be accomplished by comparing these changes on Darwin and Wallace Islands. Once this occurs, is when specific insights will be provided that are highlighting the underlying challenges affecting the development of organisms. This is the point that these transformations will be evident among the various life forms. (Fasolo, 2011, pp. 53 68)

The Grant’s are capable of studying Darwin’s theory of natural selection in action, after gathering data from their colleagues, Peter Boag and Laurene Ratcliffe, who would be their watch on Daphne Island. Peter and Laurene witnessed an important event in natural selection, during a life or death situation with the finches. Though the two scientists were anxious for rain, but they did not receive a single drop that season. Rain would mean reproduction and fertility for the finches; however, the birds were faced with e horrible drought. Food became scarce and the finch population declined. Easy seeds to obtain on the ground were nearly gone. The seeds with tougher defenses, such as the caltrop, were usually untouched, since they were hard to crack. The finches with inadequate beaks did not

The Evolution Lab simulates environmental situations to determine effects on evolution over periods of time. This lab experiments with the evolution of finches on two different islands over 100, 200, and 300 years. By manipulating parameters that influence natural selection, the effects that natural selection have on the evolution process can be studied.

The Avis Papyrus, more commonly known as the Carmel Origami Bird, native to the sparsely spaced Cool Creek Islands, was subject to a study of its evolutionary success. These birds must travel long distances to get between the islands they inhabit in order to survive long enough to produce offspring; meaning that being able to fly long distances aids in their fitness. The development of these beneficial characteristics are possible because of something called natural selection. Natural selection is the gradual process over the course of generations where a species gradually develops and excludes traits and characteristics (Fukuyama, 2004). This is to help increase reproductive success of an organism and increase the animals fitness. The experiment looked at how natural selection led to their evolution and it’s raw data shows evidence that the Origami Birds have met evolutionary success due to natural selection.

The Galapagos Islands consists of thirteen major islands and over a hundred smaller islands located along the Ecuadorian coast. The islands are home to a variety of unique species such as sea lions, sharks, rays, and 26 different species of native birds. Thirteen of these birds are Darwin’s finches. These finches are known to be the “world’s fastest-evolving vertebrates” due to their bodies quickly adapting to the rapidly changing environment (Robertson, N.D. , para.1). Their DNA chemical makeup causes these adaptations to occur. The finch’s most noticeable feature is their evolutionary adaptations, due to the briskly changing environments.

In 1977 a drought reduced the number of small seeds available for the birds, forcing them to rely on larger seeds and nuts, which were difficult for birds with smaller beaks to open. The number of birds unable to eat reduced as they died and gave way to harder beaked finches. Within a couple of generations they had evolved larger beaks. In 2003 another drought struck the Galapagos and as there were many large beaked finches, the food source of nuts dwindled, making the ability to eat smaller seeds an asset. The numbers of larger beaked birds dwindled as food became scarce, leaving the smaller birds to survive and reproduce. Darwin’s theory was not well received when first written in On the Origin of Species, though many scientists today use it as a basis for research in evolution.

Beak adaptations help to provide evidence for evolutionary theory, which was explained well in the background of our lab manual for this lab. More specifically where both artificial and natural selection were discussed and highlighted as evidence of evolution itself (Hands-On, n.d.). Within our manual, it gives great examples of how Darwin noticed birds like the cactus finches who had beaks that were pointed more and longer than that of their relatives that dwelled on the ground (Hands-On, n.d.). In addition to this, Darwin also saw that finches known as warblers had beaks that were both pointed and thinner more than that of ground and cactus finches (Hands-On, n.d.). These types of adaptations, or even the different shape and size of beaks

The term that is given for the separation of these birds on different islands is natural selection. Natural selection occurs when a specific animal, in this case a bird species, has changed a specific feature to survive in their environment, for example a larger beak will be developed over time to assist the bird to eat the food that is available in the environment, in this case nuts and seeds.

Some reasons why beaks were thought to be so useful for testing Darwin’s theory of natural selection was because it seemed that the more favorable variations in their beaks will be passed down. Another reason was because there were more variations in the beaks depending what the finches ate so he could study a variety of beaks.

When that happens over many generations a species’ gene pool changes to only include the traits that are a best fit for ensuring survival of that species, and a new species may evolve. In the case of the Galapagos finches Darwin studied, biologists have since found that one of the differences was their beak size, which were adapted to the specific seeds available to the finches as food on the different islands. This would support this principle as only the birds able to eat the local seeds would be able to survive to reproduce, thus over many generations, new finches with a variety of different beak sizes would “evolve”. The

While on the Galápagos Islands, Darwin kept notebooks about all the species there, and he noticed the variety of tortoises on the island who were essential in explaining his theory of evolution. There are several species of tortoise present on the Galápagos Islands that are all very closely related, but slightly different. There are eleven presently surviving subspecies of Galápagos tortoises; furthermore, six of the eleven are found on different islands in the archipelago, and the other five are all found on a single island on five separate volcanoes with their own mini-ecosystems (PNAS). Although all of the species of Galápagos tortoise is different, they each have small differences that can include maximum adult size, shell shape, and the length of the neck and limbs. The tortoises of the islands are most closely related to the Chaco tortoises along the western coast of South America, and they most likely came to the Galápagos by “rafting” across the water (PNAS). Similar to the tortoises, Darwin observed that the Finches on the islands also had changed to match the environment. Spread among the islands were fourteen subspecies of finch whose