May 28, 2012

Natural Selection In Hummingbirds


The evolutionary process that is modeled above is natural selection.  As time went on the beak of the hummingbird changed.  Before the change the hummingbird's beak was very fat.  This made it hard for the hummingbird to get food from the flowers.  As time continued the birds beak began to get thinner in order for it to get its food.  I chose this evolutionary process to model because the environment wasn’t able to provide for the hummingbirds with fat beaks, so in order to survive better they adapted to their environment and over time their beaks got thinner.  The thinner beaks let them get the nectar from the flower easier. This change occurred by the hummingbirds with the thinner beaks surviving better than the ones with the fatter beaks. This evolution is selective, but not random because the birds passed on the trait for a thinner beak. This change did not occur very fast, it happened over a long period of time. The source of variation is that the hummingbirds with fat beaks weren't able to compete and survive as well as the hummingbirds with thinner beaks were.

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