Biology is all about sex and not dying.
But seriously. Living things try to survive and reproduce.
Traits and behaviors that are advantageous are more likely to get passed on to offspring.
Pick a partner.
Pick a project.
Adaptation Showcase
Friday, October 25 with audience TBA
File locks on October 25 at 9:00 AM.
Episode 1 Advantageous Traits & Behaviors
How do living things survive?
Here are some categories & examples. Bet you can find more.
Predation - Traits and behaviors helpful for catching food.
Evasion - Traits and behaviors for not getting eaten.
Mimicry - Deceptively copying another living thing for an advantage.
Group Behavior - Collective action that benefits the group.
Reproductive Strategies - Baby making... techniques?
Pollination & Seed Dispersal - Plant sex!?!
More cool traits and behaviors to Notice & Wonder about.
By the way, check out peacock courtship, bird of paradise dancing, and did you know that 97% of bird species don't have a... uh... don't click this link.
Episode 2 Natural Selection
The fittest survive and then what?
Natural selection is the processes of populations adapting and changing over time as advantage traits get passed on.
A variation in the inheritable traits occurs.
If the change in the trait has an advantage, the individual may be more likely to survive and have offspring.
Over time that helpful trait becomes more common.
Episode 3 You Killed All the Mice
Don’t become friends with the mice, they might get eaten.
You'll want to actually read the instructions and use these tips for your experiment.
Question: How does ___ affect ____?
Prediction: Be specific and tell why you expect a certain outcome.
Experiment Design: Field or beach? When will the hawks come? How long will the experiment run?
Results: The line graph and pie charts will be useful!
Conclusion: Make sure to connect your results to natural selection.
Episode 4 Flowers & Sheep Poop & Owls, Oh My!
How can data show natural selection?
Everything you need is on the episode doc paper.
But.... if you can't help yourself, here are the actual scientific papers.
Flower Fitness (2018)
A note on measuring natural selection on principal component scores
Sheep Poop! (1937!)
THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING WITHIN BREEDS LINES OF SHEEP THAT ARE GENETICALLY RESISTANT TO STOMACH WORMS
They put it in all caps, not me.
Owls & Climate Change (2011)
Climate change drives microevolution in a wild bird