Natural Selection And Genetic Analysis

Superior Essays
Introduction
Alleles are different forms of genes that governor a single genetic trait (Tortora &
Derrickson, 2009, p. 1118). Genes, a section of a DNA molecule, are heritable traits that are produced by the DNA of an individual (Tortora & Derrickson, 2009, p. 53). Individuals in a population can be born with multiple different genes or characteristics (Freeman et al., 2014, p. 5). The characteristics that change throughout a population over time are known as evolution (Freeman et al., 2014, p. 5). Natural selection is a process developed by Darwin and Wallace—which is used to explain how evolution happens (Freeman et al., 2014, p. 454). Natural selection can happen when either an individual in a population has heritable characteristics or
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These four conditions include: individuals in a population have many different traits that they can acquire, most of these acquired traits are passed down to offspring, some individuals can produce more offspring than others, and because of natural selection, some individuals can survive or reproduce more than others because of a heritable trait that was passed down to them (Freeman et al., 2014, p. 454). This means that with these heritable traits that allow individuals to reproduce and survive more efficiently being passed down to offspring, there will be an increase in this trait in a certain population over time (Freeman et al., 2014, p. 454). Since traits are decided by alleles that are passed on from there parents, and alleles are different forms of genes, it can be said that evolution by natural selection is the alteration of allele occurrences over a certain population in that current time period (Freeman et al., 2014, p. 454).
To help explain the development of natural selection, Darwin came up with the idea of fitness (Freeman et al., 2014, p. 454). This shows the ability of one’s skill to be able to reproduce offspring who can out survive other individuals in the same population (Freeman et al., 2014, p. 454). To increase an individual’s fitness in a certain environment, adaption is used. This means that adaption increases the chance of an offspring to have better fitness through heritable traits that are passed on to them (Freeman et al., 2014, p. 454).
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Each table had a group of four students. Two of the students were the sorters/counters while the other two students were the predators. The piece of cloth was then spread out over the laboratory table revealing the colored patterns representing the environment. 10 pieces of each different color, representing the different population, were then counted by the sorters/counters, mixed up, and spread out over the piece of cloth. While the sorters/counters were spreading out the different populations throughout the environment, the predators were told to close their eyes to take away their advantage of seeing were the individuals in the populations were located. With the lights dimmed, at the count of three, the predators were told to open their eyes, look at the environment, and pick out the first 20 individual colored discs that they saw. With two predators taking away the first 20 individual discs that they saw, 40 total discs were removed. This represents the individuals that died off meaning that only 20 individuals survived. With the surviving 20 discs, for every 1 disk that survived, 3 more discs of the same colors were added. This represents all the surviving individuals reproducing three offspring. These discs were then spread out again over the cloth and the process was repeated two more times.

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