Date:

Student Exploration: Evolution: Natural and Artificial Selection

Directions: Follow the instructions to go through the simulation. Respond to the questions and
prompts in the orange boxes.

Vocabulary:
artificial selection
breed
chromosome
evolution
fitness
genotype
mutation
natural selection, phenotype

[Note to teachers and students: This Gizmo was designed as a follow-up to the Evolution: Mutation and
Selection Gizmo. We recommend doing that activity before trying this one.]

Prior Knowledge Question (Do this BEFORE using the Gizmo.)

This illustration from an old textbook shows some of the over 150 different dog breeds that can be seen
around the world today. How do you think all of these different breeds were developed?

They used artificial selection to breed new dog species

Gizmo Warm-up
Dog breeds and other varieties of domesticated animals were
developed through artificial selection. Over many generations,
breeders selected which animals to mate in order to select for
desired traits. The Evolution: Natural and Artificial Selection Gizmo
allows you to try your hand at breeding insects with a variety of
colors. To begin, select the Artificial selection option.

1. Drag the 10 insects into the breeding alcoves on the left side of the Gizmo.

A. How many breeding pairs are There are 5 pairs

there?

Reproduction for educational use only. Public sharing or posting prohibited. © 2020 ExploreLearning™ All rights reserved
 B. How many offspring are produced? There are 20 offspring

2. Circled insects have mutations, or changes to their DNA. How many of the offspring insects in this
generation have mutations? There are 2 mutated

Activity A:
Get the Gizmo ready:
Genotype and ● Select Natural selection.
phenotype

Question: How are genes inherited and modified over many generations?

1. Observe: The fitness of an insect is a measure of how well it is adapted to its environment.

A. What is the initial Average fitness of these insects? The initial is 50%

B. Click Play ( ), and observe the simulation for several generations. What occurs in each
generation?

The bird comes and eats some of them

C. Increase the Sim. speed by one level. Click Pause ( ) after 30 generations. What is the Average
fitness now? 70%

2. Analyze: Set the Sim. speed to its slowest level. Click Play, and then Pause when the offspring appear.
Choose a pair of parents in which both parents have a different color.

A. Move your cursor over a parent insect. The genes that control color make up an insect’s genotype,
while its actual color is its phenotype. Fill in the genotypes and phenotypes of each parent below.

Parent 1 Parent 1 Parent 2 Parent 2

genotype phenotype genotype phenotype

Red= 170 Red= 128

Green= 170 Green= 213

Blue = 170 Blue = 17

Now list the genotypes of each of the four offspring below.

Offspring 1 Offspring 2 Offspring 3 Offspring 4

Reproduction for educational use only. Public sharing or posting prohibited. © 2020 ExploreLearning™ All rights reserved
 BWG BWG BWG RWG WRG CRW WRG RWG

3. Explain: Each rod-shaped structure is a chromosome. Real chromosomes contain hundreds or even
thousands of genes. The simplified chromosomes shown in this Gizmo only contain genes that determine
the insects’ colors.

How are the chromosomes of the offspring related to the chromosomes of the parents?

The offspring inherit their genetic information from the parents. Each parent gives one
chromosome to each offspring.

4. Investigate: Any insect that has a mutation will be circled. Place your cursor on an insect with a mutation to
examine its genotype. (If there are none in this generation, click Play and then Pause when a mutation
appears.)

A. Examine the genotype of the mutated insect as well as the genotypes of its parents to determine
what the mutation is. What new gene appeared? Genotype B (blue)

B. Do you think this mutation is helpful, harmful, or neutral for the insect? Explain.

Helpful it hides the bug better with the leaves.

C. Click Play, and then click Pause after the birds have finished eating. Did the mutated insect
survive?

Yes it did survive

5. Observe: Increase the Sim. speed by two levels. Click Play, and wait for a while. What occurs as time
goes by?

The colors changed from a mixed color to green

Reproduction for educational use only. Public sharing or posting prohibited. © 2020 ExploreLearning™ All rights reserved
6. Explain: In wild populations, evolution is often caused by natural selection. Based on what you have
observed, how does natural selection occur?

Natural selection occurs by survival of the fittest the insect that could hide lived longer and had
babies

Get the Gizmo ready:

Activity B:
● Select Artificial selection.
Artificial selection ● Set the Mutation rate to 2.0.

Question: How can a species be changed through artificial selection?

1. Set a goal: In this activity, your goal is to develop insects that are any color you would like.

What color do you want your insects to be? cyan

2. Make a plan: Follow the directions in the Gizmo to produce five generations of insects.

A. How would you describe the process of artificial selection?

Artificial selection is the process by which humans select individual organisms for
breeding based on their phenotypic characteristic values.

B. How will mutations be useful in achieving your goal color?

If the mutations are useful in achieving your color goal, they may speed up the process
or introduce a color that is the exact same color as your objective.

C. What strategy will you use to produce insects of your desired color?

You can combine different genes with insect genes to create new ones. This is the
approach you take.

📷
3. Run Gizmo: Use the Gizmo to produce insects that match your goal color. (This will take patience!) When
you are satisfied, click the camera ( ) to take a screenshot. Right-click the image and choose Copy
Image, and then paste the image below.

Reproduction for educational use only. Public sharing or posting prohibited. © 2020 ExploreLearning™ All rights reserved
 📷
How many generations did it take for you to develop your insects? 3

4. Compare: If possible, compare your insects to the insects developed by your classmates. What different
colors of insects can be developed using artificial selection?

i wasnt in a classroom while doing this

5. Explain: One of the tallest dog breeds is the Great Dane, which stands over a meter tall. One of the
shortest is the Pomeranian, which stands about 20 centimeters tall. Based on what you have learned about
artificial selection, how were these two breeds developed?

All that is required to breed a dog of a given size is to select parents with the proper variations.
If you want to create a small dog breed, for example, you would simply breed your smallest
dogs, then pick their smallest offspring to breed the next generation, and so on until you reach
the desired size.

Reproduction for educational use only. Public sharing or posting prohibited. © 2020 ExploreLearning™ All rights reserved
6. Collect data: Use the Red, Green, and Blue sliders to match the Background color as closely as possible
to phenotype of the insects. Select Natural selection.

Click Play, and then click Pause when the Average fitness first exceeds 90%. Record the number of
generations in the table below, and then repeat for a total of five trials.

Trial 1 2 3 4 5 Mean
Number of generations
4 12 18 8 6 9.6
to achieve 90% fitness

7. Calculate: Add up the number of generations and divide by five to find the mean number of generations
required to reach at least 90% fitness. Fill in the last column of the table.

8. Analyze: Which process tends to occur more quickly, natural selection or artificial selection? Why do you
think this is so?

Artificial selection, when compared to natural selection, it takes far less time.
The only time necessary for the procedure is the time spent selecting the
individual with the desired character and then mating them to produce
offspring.

9. Summarize: How are the processes of natural selection and artificial selection similar? How are they
different? If possible, discuss your answer with your classmates and teacher.

In natural selection an organism would adapt to its environment to survive and in

artificial selection the most desirable characteristics are chosen.

Reproduction for educational use only. Public sharing or posting prohibited. © 2020 ExploreLearning™ All rights reserved
 Get the Gizmo ready:
Activity C:
● Click Reset ( ). Be sure Natural selection is
Mutation rates selected.
● Set Red to 100, Green to 255, and Blue to 50.

Question: How does the mutation rate affect a population’s ability to adapt to its environment?

1. Gather data: Change the Mutation rate to 0.1 and the Sim. speed slider to its lowest setting. Click Play,
and then click Pause when the offspring appear. Record the number of mutations (circled offspring), and
then repeat for two more trials. Do this for each mutation rate listed in the table, then calculate the mean
number of mutations for each mutation rate.
Mutation rate Trial 1 (Gen 1) Trial 2 (Gen 2) Trial 3 (Gen 3) Mean
= (0+0+1)/3=
0.1 0 0 0
0.33 (⅓)
= (3+0+1)/3=
1.0 3 0 1
1.33
= (7+6+9)/3=
10.0 7 6 9
7.33

How does the mutation rate relate to the number of mutations in each generation?
They are about the same number where the mutation is 0.1 the end result is 0.

2. Form hypothesis: How do you expect the rate of mutations to affect the ability of the bug population to
adapt to its environment?
The rate of mutation will affect since it depends on the amount of offsprings come out different

3. Gather data: Click Reset. Set the Mutation rate to 0.1, and move the Sim. speed slider to a faster setting.
Click Play, and then click Pause when the Average fitness is 90% or greater. Record the number of
generations required to reach 90% fitness in the table below.
Number of generations to 90% average fitness
Mutation rate Mean
Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3
= (321+300+177)/3=
0.1 321 300 177
266
= (65+523+79)/3=
0.3 65 523 79
222.33
= (64+82+156)/3=
0.5 64 82 156
100.67
= (100+67+100)/3=
1.0 100 67 100
89.00
= (77+52+49)/3=
3.0 77 52 49
59.33
= (28+37+34)/3=
5.0 28 37 34
24.33
= (76+42+60)/3=
10.0 76 42 60
59.33

Reproduction for educational use only. Public sharing or posting prohibited. © 2020 ExploreLearning™ All rights reserved
4. Analyze: How does the mutation rate affect the speed at which a population adapts to its environment?
It doesn’t take as many generations to get to the Average fitness.

5. Think and discuss: You may have noticed that above a certain mutation rate the time required for a
population to adapt to its background may increase. Why do you think this is so? If possible, discuss your
answer with your classmates and teacher.
Not every bug can adapt to new life or where it lives. Plus there are predators that hunt
these
bugs which lowers their population. Which ends up taking time to make the population
go up

6. Apply: Scientists doing artificial breeding experiments often use radiation or other methods to increase the
mutation rate. Why is a high mutation rate useful?
High mutation is useful because traits will manifest themselves and work themselves
into the
genetic fabric of the organism population

7. Investigate: Use the Gizmo to develop a population of insects that are well adapted to their environment.
(Average fitness is above 90%.) Change the Mutation rate to 0.1, and run the simulation. Then, observe
the population with a Mutation rate of 10.0.
A. What do you notice?

that in mutation rate it takes a while to hit the average fitness and it never goes
beyond
90% while for the mutation rate 0.1 only takes a few generations.

B. If a population is already well-adapted to its environment, will most mutations be helpful or harmful?
Explain.
it will be helpful because the adaption is already adapted to its environment. But
if
changes where to be made to the environment the bug will more likely not
survive and
the population will go down eventually

Additional Support- Web Resources

Artificial selection: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_30
Natural selection: http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/futuyma.html
Domestication: http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab57
Hybrids: http://waynesword.palomar.edu/hybrids1.htm

Reproduction for educational use only. Public sharing or posting prohibited. © 2020 ExploreLearning™ All rights reserved
Artificial selection activities: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/activities/3103_dogs.html,
http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/BornToRun.html
Charles Darwin: http://www.visionlearning.com/library/module_viewer.php?mid=111,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/zq8gcdm, http://darwin-online.org.uk/biography.html

Reproduction for educational use only. Public sharing or posting prohibited. © 2020 ExploreLearning™ All rights reserved