Bird Beak Lab

After finishing the first part of the experiment, we claimed that the individuals that have the better traits, for collecting food etc, will be able to reproduce more efficiently and leave more offspring. When we did our simulation, the spoon chicks had 14 chicks, the binder clip chicks had 13 chicks, the tweezers chicks had 15 chicks, the scissor chicks had 13 chicks and the chopstick chicks had 15 chicks. By our simulation, we concluded that the tweezer chicks and the chopstick chicks, who could pick up food easier, had the best traits because of the fact that they reproduced the most and also that they picked up the most food.

Another claim that we had was, "Populations begin to look more like winners". We can support this claim through our simulation, which resulted in the tweezer and the chopstick beaks to end up with 21.4% each in the population. The binder clip and the scissors got only 18.5% of the population. This evidence shows that the tweezers and the chopsticks had the better traits in order to reproduce. Also, these better traits were more apparent, than the losers, when the population totals of each type of bird was recorded.

The Total Amount of Chicks Born for Each Type of Bird Beak

The Total Amount of Chicks Born for Each Type of Bird Beak After the Environmental Stressor of a Limitation on Food

In part 2 of our lab, we asked the question, "If natural selection occurs in a population, how do changes in selective pressures affect the evolution of that species?" Our hypothesis was if natural selection was to occur in the population, then the organisms that are better suited for it will survive and continue their process to improve and dominate the population. We were given the environmental stressor that took away 3/4 of our food supply, leaving us with 1/4 left. We found out that the tweezers, which had 14 chicks born, and scissors, which had 13 chicks born, were able to produce the most because they were able to take a lot of food in the given time compared to the others. However, the spoon and the chopsticks, who both had 8 chicks, was not able to get as much food as the others, which reduced their offsprings amount. This evidence supported our claim, and we think that the reason that this happened was because of the fact that the tweezers and the scissors were able to adapt faster to the less amount of food so that they can create more offspring.

Two errors that could have occurred in this lab were the dispersion of the food and the other error could be the level of experience that a person had with the tool they were using. The uneven dispersion of food could have caused a problem because then there would be an unfair advantage to the person who was closer to the food rather than another person who was farther away. This could have an effect because then the person who is closer to the food would have a better chance of collecting more food and reproducing more. The other error was the level of experience that a person had with the tool. For example, a person who uses a spoon very often will have an easier time to collect food when compared to a person who used the binder clip, with not much experience. This could affect the outcome of the experiment because the person who is more experienced could pick up more food. To prevent these errors in the future, I would recommend that we should have tools that people would have about the same experience when using them, along with more even dispersion of the food so that there is no advantage to one person.

This lab was done so that we could understand Darwin's different conclusions along with how competition works. This lab relates to what we have learned through our vodcasts, which explained Darwin's observations and conclusions along with what competition is and how it works. We can apply what we learned from this lab to help understand different ecosystems and also we can predict what will happen when different things happen that can affect the ecosystem. This could help prevent the extinction of different species.