A MR.

SAPORA PRODUCTION

EVOLUTION IN ACTION

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Natural Selection
THICK-BILLED MURRES NESTING ON THE REMOTE ALEUTIAN ISLAND OF BULDIR, ALASKA

Seabird Eggs:
adaption to life on the edge.
Cliff-nesting seabirds are some of the most abundant birds on Earth. Thickbilled murres nest on vertical seacliffs in the northern Pacic hemisphere and number around 15 20 million in total population. While there is more than enough food for them spread out across the vast, rich oceans of the North Pacic, Bering, and Chukchi Seas - nesting space is very limited when it comes time to lay their single, large egg. During the breeding season, they are forced to crowd onto tiny, sharp ledges where they lay a single, large egg.

Dont let it roll!!!

Thick-billed murre eggs are shaped like a toy-top. Why is that? Well, over millions of years evolutionary forces have been at work selecting for an egg that will not roll off the cliff edge when it gets bumped (and they do get bumped!). Natural selection does not work to form a top-like egg, rather it has favored genetic variations that have arisen within the population. Eggs that are more top-like in shape stay on the cliff when they get bumped, while eggs that are less top-like roll off and break. Over time, natural selection favored the adaptation of the pronounced top-like form we see today!

FORM = FUNCTION

How things look in nature directly relates to what they do in nature.

Thick-billed murres have adapted to life on the edge in a number of fascinating ways - one of the more striking is in the shape of the egg they lay. Here is where form truly does equal function!

SERIOUSLY TIGHT. Thick-billed murres make do, nesting on tiny ledges high above the North Pacic Ocean. Saint Paul Island, Alaska.

VARIATION. Each murre egg is slightly different in color and shape (variation). Each year only about half of the eggs laid will actually hatch into chicks. The other half are knockedoff the cliff, predated on, or abandoned.

TIP-TOP-SHAPED ADAPTATION. The conical top-shape of the egg keeps it from rolling off the edge of the cliff when it gets bumped (adaptation).