Natural Selection and Evolution Lab Report

Aim: To determine/investigate the effect of the rainforest habitat and the swamp habitat on
the population of yellow frogs and green frogs.

Hypothesis: It is hypothesised that in the rainforest habitat, there will be a larger population
of green frogs as they are more suitable in this environment as they have a favourable trait,
being their colour (green), making it easy to camouflage. Similarly in a swamp habitat, there
will be a larger population of yellow frogs as they are more suitable in this environment as
they have the favourable trait, their colour(yellow), making it easy to camouflage.

Variables:
Independent variable: The type of habitat
Dependent variable: The population of the yellow frogs and green frogs.
Controlled variables:
1. Number of green and yellow frogs at the start should be the same ( 8 yellow frogs
and 8 green frogs)
2. Random offspring (rolling the dice when a yellow and green mate) (1-3= green
offspring) (4-6= yellow offspring)
3. The mating process (random and 1 offspring per parents)
4. The number of frogs killed each year (8 frogs)

Materials:
 Environments – swamp and forest  Dice
 30 green frog cards  Table to record results
 30 yellow frog cards

Method:
Set up
1. Place the swamp and rainforest environments separately on the table.
2. Count out 10 yellow frogs and 10 green frogs into each environment (total of 20 frogs
in each). Keep the populations separate.

Part A – The frog

Colour of parents Colour of offspring
Yellow x Yellow Yellow
Green x Green Green
Green x Yellow Roll a Dice:
Number on dice is 1-3 = green offspring
Number on dice is 4-6 = yellow offspring
population
3. For the swamp environment.
 Shuffle the coloured frog cards and place them at random into 10 random
pairs.
  Use Table 1 and the dice to determine what colour offspring each pair
will have. You will add this coloured frog into the population.
 At the end of the round, your population will have grown to 30 frogs.

TABLE 1- Determining the colour of offspring

Part B – Predation by snakes

4. Now 10 frogs will be eaten by snakes in each habitat.
5. Around the swamp, green frogs are more to be eaten than the yellow frogs. In
the forest, the yellow frogs are more likely to be eaten than the green frogs.
6. For the swamp environment.
 Mix up the frog cards.
 Use the dice and Table 2 to decide which 10 frogs will be eaten –
remove them from the pond.
 If there are no frogs of a particular colour, throw the die again.
 After the 10 frogs have been removed from the pond count the frogs of
each colour and record the numbers in the Results Table.
7. Repeat steps A and B for 10 years or until all the frogs are the same colour in
the pond environment.
8. Repeat steps 3-7 for the forest environment.

TABLE 2 – Predation by snakes

Number on Die Swamp Forest

1 Green Yellow
2 Green Yellow
3 Green Yellow
4 Green Yellow
5 Yellow Green
6 Yellow Green

The effect of the swamp environemnt on the population of

Green frogs and yellow frogs

Results Table - Swamp

Number of frogs within the population
Frog Original
Colour Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year
populatio
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
n
Green 8 8 7 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Yellow 8 8 9 11 15 16 16 16 16 16 16

The effect of the forest environment on the population of

Green frogs and yellow frogs

Results Table - Forest

Number of frogs within the population
Frog
Colour Original Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year Year
population 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Green 8 11 13 16 16 16 16 16 16 16 16
Yellow 8 5 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Graphs:

The effect of forest environment on the popula-

tion of green frogs and yellow frogs
Population of green and yellow frogs

18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Years

Green Yellow
Population of frogs (green and yellow)

The effect of the swamp environment on the

population of green frogs and yellow frogs
16
12
8
4
0
Orig- Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Year 6 Year 7 Year 8 Year 9 Year
inal 10
popu-
lation

Years

Green Yellow

DISCUSSION:

Similar trend: the habitats both start out with eight frogs (year 0, 8 frogs)

Forest environment trend:

From year 1 to year 2 the number of green frogs starts steadily increasing, with 13 frogs by
year 2. While the number of yellow frogs starts decreasing quickly, with 3 frogs by year 2.
This is due to the green frogs having the favourable trait. The favourable trait being the
colour green, being able to camouflage from predators in the green forest environment.
While the yellow frog’s population starts to decrease as it stands out in its green
environment. By year 3, all the yellow frogs have been killed off by the snake predator,
leaving only green frogs remaining, to continue to breed more green frogs.

Swamp environment trend:

From year 1 to year 3 the number of yellow frogs in the swamp environment increases from
8 in year 0 to 11 in year 3. While the green frogs go from 8 frogs in year 0, to 5 in year 3. The
green frogs are decreasing rapidly, while the yellow are increasing rapidly. This relationship
is inverse correlation. While the yellow frogs population increases, the green frogs
population decreases. This correlation is due to the yellow frog having the favourable trait,
being yellow and being able to camouflage in the yellow swamp environment, while the
green frog stand out in this bright, contrasting environment and gets found and killed by the
snake.

Validity:
This investigation was valid as all the variables were controlled. Such as starting off with 8 of
each different colour frog in each environment and the number of frogs killed each year
being 8.

Reliability:
This investigation was reliable, as the process of breeding and killing off was repeated 12
times (12 years).
Improvements:
To improve this experiment, I would include another trial in each environment over another
12 years to improve the reliability.

CONCLUSION:
My hypothesis was supported. I hypothesised that in the rainforest habitat there will be
more green frogs as they can camouflage into the green environment, while there will be
less yellow frogs as the stand out in the green forest environment. Vice versa for the swamp
environment. More yellow frogs and less green frogs due to the favourable colour trait that
is the same as the environment.

In the forest environment, the population of green frogs increases, while the yellow
decrease.

In the swamp environment, the population of yellow frogs increases, while the green
decreases.