Galapagos Evolution

In the Galapagos Islands there is an island named, Daphne Major, this island plays as the host of the Galapagos finches. In 1976 - 1977 there was an absolute near extinction of these finches. This is because of the drought of 1976 and 1977 (see figure 1). While the drought made the Finch population dwindle there was a hidden trait that was helping some survive, and that is beak size. Why did the larger beaks help those fortunate Finches survive? Because the only plants that survived where plants like the Tribulus, which produces hard shelled seeds. While there was an abundance of hard shelled seeds there was a shortage of soft shelled seeds. The finches that had the larger beaks weighed more, for example, survivors weighed approx. 12.5g to 17.5g with beak sizes going from 10.5 to 13.6(for evidence see figure 2. This reduced the population because the Finch’s with the smaller beaks couldn't open the harder seeds and had to scavenge for soft seeds which were very rare. The finches with small beaks, then died from starvation

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.

According to Darwin and his theory on evolution, organisms are presented with nature’s challenge of environmental change. Those that possess the characteristics of adapting to such challenges are successful in leaving their genes behind and ensuring that their lineage will continue. It is natural selection, where nature can perform tiny to mass sporadic experiments on its organisms, and the results can be interesting from extinction to significant changes within a species.

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.

After watching the video on Finch evolution, and completing the gizmo, I have found many correlations between the finch population, and the climate of the Galapagos Islands. The Finches beak size was dependent on the climate, and natural selection. The population of the birds increased and decreased throughout the years because the extreme climate changes and the process of natural selection.

Evolution is a change in the genetic makeup of a population over time, with natural selection its major driving mechanism. Darwin’s theory, which is supported by evidence from many scientific disciplines, states that inheritable variations occur in individuals in a population. Due to competition for limited resources, individuals with more favorable variations or phenotypes are more likely to survive and produce more offspring, thus passing traits to future generations. In addition to the process of natural selection, naturally occurring catastrophic and human induced events as well as random environmental changes can result in alteration in the gene pools of populations. Small populations are especially sensitive to these forces. A diverse

Throughout the book Galapagos, by Kurt Vonnegut, the author depicts what he believes the evolution of mankind looks like and how it occurs. The four forces of evolution which can be found throughout the story are genetic drift, mutations, natural selection and gene flow. The characters of the story are on a cruise, Bahia de Darwin, heading towards Santa Rosalia in the Galapagos islands. The inhabitants on this cruise ship are the only people who remain that are capable of reproducing after an infectious outbreak which caused the rest of the population to become infertile. This is an example of genetic drift, because the outbreak of the infectious disease caused a large portion of the population to no longer

The finches on the Galapagos Islands all evolved separately from each other and adapted to their unique environments. The different species of finch on the Islands developed different characteristics over time to fit into their niche in the

The (Grant and Grant 2006) discussed the intraspecific completion between the G. fortis and its opposing and larger competitor, the G. magnirostris. Character displacement in the finches can describe the evolutionary changes they went through. As proposed by Lack in this paper, character displacement caused G. fortis to evolutionary develops smaller beak sizes in order to consume smaller seeds. As smaller seeds were prevalent, finches would consume those as a food supply. As small seeds started to diminish, large seeds were the seed of choice for them. Unfortunately, they were not able to adapt their small bill size to break these large seeds, causing problems for them. Therefore, this can be stated as the hypothesis of the paper where Grant and Grant tried to show that the beak size of the G.fortis evolved and changed due to ecological factors like competitor

We look at how adaptations happens with natural selections with variations, populations, and over reproduction with the environment. We conducted an experienced and look at finches on Galapagos island through 1976 to 1978 with the offspring to see how natural selection played. What happen was as the food source went down the finches with small beaks could not eat the big nuts with harder shells with the finches with bigger beaks could and passed the trait with the bigger beaks to its offspring to survive. So went the drought took place the birds how to adapt to its surroundings. All adaptations happens when natural selection takes places which makes populations, new species, or even extinct one, adapt.

Darwin's finches, inhabiting the Galápagos archipelago and Cocos island, constitute an iconic model for studies of speciation and adaptive evolution. A team of scientists from Uppsala University and Princeton University has now shed light on the evolutionary history of these birds and identified a gene that explains variation in beak shape within and among species. The study is published today in Nature, on the day before the 206th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin.

I accepted my hypothesis. Natural Selection and genetic drift can modify the population and frequencies over time. And according to the natural selection, the trait which best fit to the environment can be passed on.

While the idea of evolution has been around for centuries, it did not begin to gain general acceptance until the time of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species. Even then, it was met with skepticism and even anger and hatred. Though considered heresy by many as it appeared to

Geospiza scandens, Geospiza magnirostris, and Geospiza fuliginosa are three out of several species of Darwin’s finches that have evolved over time via natural selection in the Galapagos Islands. As environmental conditions change over hundreds of years, these finches are forced to continuously adapt to their ever changing environment. In this experiment, the effects of beak morphology on seed consumption were studied, including the impact of different environmental conditions on beak morphology. We used three different types of seeds of varying sizes as a food source that were consumed by 3 species of birds. The beaks of these birds were mimicked using different sizes and shapes of pliers. The amount of each type of seed was changed to reflect

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