Practical: Natural Selection

Year 10 Biology

BACKGROUND

In 1859, Charles Darwin set out his theory of evolution by natural selection as an explanation for
adaptation and speciation. ... The concept was simple but powerful: individuals best adapted to their
environments are more likely to survive and reproduce.

TASK

Your task is to model and analyse natural selection in action, using a variety of selection pressures

MEHTOD

You will receive 40 green frogs, 40 yellow frogs, and 40 red frogs

Using these frogs you will set up 4 different scenarios which demonstrate natural selection, 2 as described
in this document, and 2 of your own scenarios.

The scenario will have one of the following selection pressures.

▪ Selection pressures are : diseases, illnesses, climate change, parasitism, competition, predation, land
clearance, pollutants

Scenario 1
Use 10 frogs of each colour

The environment is green (think forest)

Roll the dice once for each frog. The green frogs are more likely to survive so they will survive on numbers
1, 2, 3, 4. All other frogs will only survive if you roll a 1. After a roll has been done for each frog, count up
the numbers of each colour and record this in a table

At the end of each round the frogs breed. Pair up the frogs by colour and for each pair add a new frog of
that colour. If there is only 1 it does not breed

Scenario 2

Use 10 frogs of each colour

There are predators that eat the frogs. Use 5 of the predator tokens. Gently toss your predator into the mix
of frogs, the frog it lands on gets eaten. Each predator can only eat 1 frog per cycle, so do all 5 predators
and then count up the frogs of each before doing all 5 predators again.

At the end of each round the frogs breed. Pair up the frogs by colour and for each pair add a new frog of
that colour. If there is only 1 it does not breed

Scenario 3 – fill this out to make your own

Use ___ frogs of each colour

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At the end of each round the frogs breed. Pair up the frogs by colour and for each pair add a new frog of
that colour. If there is only 1 it does not breed

Scenario 4 – fill this out to make your own

Use ___ frogs of each colour

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At the end of each round the frogs breed. Pair up the frogs by colour and for each pair add a new frog of
that colour. If there is only 1 it does not breed

RESULTS
Draw 4 tables, one for each scenario below

(a) State the independent variable in the experiment.

(b) State the dependent variable in the experiment.

(c) Select one of your experiments. Make a graph with 3 trend lines, one for each colour of frog.

(d) In your scenarios which frogs were most likely to survive, why was this?

(e) Describe one random error that could have occurred in this practical and how it would have
affected the data.

(f) Describe one systematic error that could have occurred in this practical and how it would have
affected the data.

(g) What could you do to improve this experiment, how could you improve the accuracy of your data?