Exercises: Natural and Artificial Selection
Define natural selection*. Then name the term for a feature of an organism that is passed from parents to offspring and can help it survive.
Define natural selection. Then name the term for a feature of an organism that is passed from parents to offspring and can help it survive.
Farmers in Iowa breed only the corn plants that produce the largest ears and plant their seeds the next year. Is this natural selection or artificial selection? Explain…
Farmers in Iowa breed only the corn plants that produce the largest ears and plant their seeds the next year. Is this natural selection or artificial selection? Explain who or what is doing the selecting.
Name two differences between natural selection and artificial selection. Write your answer in two complete sentences.
Name two differences between natural selection and artificial selection. Write your answer in two complete sentences.
A population of beetles living on a Texas hillside has green and brown individuals. Birds can see green beetles more easily against the brown soil. Describe what will…
A population of beetles living on a Texas hillside has green and brown individuals. Birds can see green beetles more easily against the brown soil. Describe what will most likely happen to the proportion of green and brown beetles over many generations, and explain your reasoning using the terms variation, inheritance, and survival.
Aaliyah wants to breed dogs that are calm and good at learning commands. Describe the steps she could follow over several generations to change the traits of her dogs…
Aaliyah wants to breed dogs that are calm and good at learning commands. Describe the steps she could follow over several generations to change the traits of her dogs through artificial selection. Then explain why this process would be slower or faster than a dog trait changing in the wild.
A population of finches on an island has beaks of different lengths. After a drought, only large, hard seeds remain. Before the drought the average beak depth was 8.5…
A population of finches on an island has beaks of different lengths. After a drought, only large, hard seeds remain. Before the drought the average beak depth was 8.5 mm. Two generations later it was 9.6 mm. (a) Calculate the change in average beak depth. (b) Explain why the average changed.
Bacteria in a hospital are exposed to an antibiotic. Most die, but a few bacteria that have a trait for resistance survive and reproduce. After several rounds of…
Bacteria in a hospital are exposed to an antibiotic. Most die, but a few bacteria that have a trait for resistance survive and reproduce. After several rounds of treatment, nearly all bacteria in the population are resistant. Write a claim, evidence, and reasoning (CER) response explaining how this is an example of natural selection. Then explain why the antibiotic did not "cause" the resistance trait to appear.
Compare the wild mustard plant with the crops broccoli, cabbage, and kale, which were all developed from it. (a) Identify which type of selection produced these crops…
Compare the wild mustard plant with the crops broccoli, cabbage, and kale, which were all developed from it. (a) Identify which type of selection produced these crops and explain the process. (b) Describe one risk of having a farm field where all the plants are genetically very similar, using the idea of variation in a population. (c) Explain how a similar lack of variation could be a problem for a wild population facing a new disease.