Exercise 1a reproduced the outcome of 30 beetle population size that has a ratio of 1:1:1 in red, orange and yellow phenotypes and indistinguishable predation ratio (1:1:1) over 20 generations. 3 trials out of 4 showed an analogous trend, the highest frequency of alleles is the yellow phenotype after the 14th generation in trial 2 and 3 and 13th generation in trial 4, making the overall surviving beetle population by 20 generations. The red beetle population showed a drastic extinction after the 13th generation in the first trial, 14th generation in second trial and 10th generation in third trial. However, the orange beetle coloration is at all times unbeaten at the beginning of the experiment, exceeding the survival of yellow beetles …show more content…
The hypothesis declared that orange and red beetles would be lessened to 0 while the yellow beetle coloration succeeded, the initial state and increase in frequency of allele in yellow beetles to 100% made the decrease in genetic variation. This was seen in the outcomes of the exercise, unfavorable traits were removed through natural selection and such individuals with much fitness, in this case, the yellow beetles, succeeded because of the profusion of the resources (only 120 beetles may stay alive at any point) and yellow has a selective advantage in such environment like dessert since they are favorable, while orange and red beetle coloration have unfavorable characteristics since it would be easier to spot them. This is associated to scrutiny established in the literature which stated that such combination of phenotypes are results of being favored by the environment while diminishing the rate of recurrence of the erstwhile which are increasingly not favorable through the natural selection method (Holt 1997).
However, the outcomes showed the change in genetic variation of species through the removal of alleles in the gene pool was caused by natural selection and genetic drift. Once the variation genetically reached 0 in population, extirpation is most likely to happen since adaptation is not possible …show more content…
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