Galapagos Finches Research Paper

Paper 1: Beak of Finch On the remote island, Daphne Major, among the Galapagos archipelago, Peter and Rosemary Grant spent forty years conducting groundbreaking scientific research on the island’s finch population that further supported Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection. The Galapagos Islands have about 13 species of finches that differ in size and in diverse habitats and may have originated from the same finch ancestor that arrived from the mainland about two million years ago. The three factors for evolutionary process, variability, selection by differential fitness, and heritability, are key to tracking the “micro-evolution” of the Galapagos finches and to further understanding about how diverse environments contribute to the creation of new species. …show more content…
The beaks of the Galapagos finches is the highlight of their difference due to the varying sizes and shapes. These different sizes and shapes allows the finches to live on the diverse habitats of the Galapagos, from the large trees at the higher elevations to the cacti and shrubs at the lower island regions. For example, warbler finches had fine needle-like beaks to pick up and eat insects. The woodpecker finches have robust beaks to eat beetle and termite larvae. The cactus finches have long, sharp beaks to suck the nectar of a cactus flower. Even the ground finches vary from large, medium, and small beaks. Beaks are the finches’ primary tool to find food resources, so the variety of tools matches the variety of