Abe Stiles

1 Biology

The Binder Beaks

The Purpose of the ClipBird experiment was to see the selection factor for
ClipBirds best adapting to east and west Clipland. There were three types of
ClipBirds, the big beak that needs 80 calories to survive, the small beak that needs
25 calories to survive, and the medium beak that needs 50 calories to survive. The
hypothesis was that the medium beak birds would thrive the best because they
have a beak big enough to eat most of the food, and small enough so that they
dont need to eat as much food. The food consisted of, marbles, pinto beans, and
popcorn seeds. A marble is worth 10 calories, a bean is worth 5 calories, and
popcorn is worth 2 calories. The beaks in the experiment were binder clips. The
volunteers had 45 seconds to eat as much food as possible. If they dont eat
enough calories then they die. In between east and west Clipland their is a
mountain. Because of this, west Clipland has a dryer climate and has less flora than
east clipland. This resulted in the east having more fruit. At the end of the
experiment, west Clipland had 0 big and small beaks, and 4 medium beaks. While
east Clipland had 2 big beak and 5 medium beaks. This proves the hypothesis
correct. So in the end, medium beaks prevailed for west and east clipland.
!. I believe that natural selection was shown in the experiment because in the end,
the medium beak survived the best and the medium beak is the most efficient in an
evolutionary standpoint.
2. On the east side, the land was dry and the food was not as plentiful as the west.
The result of this is that the bird population in the west was higher
3. I feel like this would not happen in real life because there would be mix breeding,
resulting in a variety of beak sizes