The researchers placed white and brown mouse models both in abandoned fields on the mainland (dark soil) and on sand dunes on the islands (light soil) and then measured the percentage of models that were attacked by predators. What is the take-home message of the data? Do the data support or reject the hypothesis that mouse color is adaptive?

How can the Darwinian concept of descent with modification explain the evolution of such complex structures as an eye?

Apply Darwin's four postulates to a population of mice living on sand dunes in coastal Florida.

A team led by evolutionary biologist Hopi Hoekstra set out to test the hypothesis that predators are an agent of natural selection on mouse color. They made 250 plasticine models of mice that were alike in every way except that half were painted white and half were painted brown. Suggest one advantage and one disadvantage of using model mice instead of real mice in this experiment.

A population of snails is preyed on by birds that break the snails open on rocks, eat the soft bodies, and leave the shells. The snails occur in both striped and unstriped forms. In one area, researchers counted both live snails and broken shells. Their data are summarized below: Which snail form seems better adapted to this environment? Why? Predict how the frequencies of striped and unstriped snails might change in the future.

Darwin originally defined evolution as __________.

Which of the following is a key observation that must be explained in a unifying theory about life?

The scala naturae, or scale of nature, is based on the ideas of __________.

At the time Darwin voyaged on HMS Beagle, the popularly accepted theory in Western culture that explained the origin of Earth's plants and animals held that the various species __________.