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

From what you have learned about water, why do coastal regions tend to have milder climates with cooler summers and warmer winters than do inland areas at the same latitude?

Most mice living on the mainland of Florida are brown, but the mice that live on the sand dunes of the barrier islands have white fur. The differences in color are heritable, determined by genes such as MC1R. It is intuitive that the light color of beach-dwelling mice is an adaptation for blending into their environment—and thus evading predators.Compare how evolution by inheritance of acquired characters and the theory of evolution by natural selection would explain the observation of white mice living primarily on light soil and brown mice living primarily on dark soil.

Most mice living on the mainland of Florida are brown, but the mice that live on the sand dunes of the barrier islands have white fur. The differences in color are heritable, determined by genes such as MC1R. It is intuitive that the light color of beach-dwelling mice is an adaptation for blending into their environment—and thus evading predators.What is an evolutionary adaptation?a. a trait that improves the fitness of its bearer, compared with individuals without the traitb. a trait that changes in response to environmental influences within the individual's lifetimec. the ability of an individual to adjust to its environmentd. a trait that an individual wants so that it can survive

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

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.

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?

Darwin originally defined evolution as __________.