15/5/20

ADAPTATIONS &
EVOLUTION:
Selective Pressures

Year 10 Biological Science

Recap on § Natural selection is the process by which an environmental

factor acts on a population and results in some organisms

Natural
having a greater change of survival and producing more
offspring than others.

Selection

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Recap on
§ Adaptation is a process in which an organism undergoes a
change that ultimately allows successful survival in their
environment. This is then passed down to other generations.

Natural
Selection

§ Selective pressures highlight the effect in

which an environmental factor influences the
way in which organisms adapt and evolve to
survive.
§ May also be referred to as a “selective
agent”, or ”evolutionary pressure”.

Sourced from : https://antonl-evolution.weebly.com /selective-pressure.htm l

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Geographical Isolation Accessibility of Food &

Water

Climate TYPES OF
SELECTIVE
PRESSURES
Risk of Predation

Disease
Likelihood of Breeding

Galapagos
Finches

Sourced from: https://www.santacruzgalapagoscruise.com/galapagos-finches/

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Galapagos
Finches

Sourced from: https://www.santacruzgalapagoscruise.com/galapagos-finches/

WHY DID THEY EVOLVE TO HAVE DIFFERENT BEAKS?

Geographic Isolation
& Availability of Food
Resources!

Sourced from: https://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/samerica/lgcolor/gpcolor.htm

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Evolutionary
Advantages Experiment
Work with the person next to you to determine what is the
most efficient method of “eating” a button!

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Evolutionary
Advantages
Investigation
How well adapted are different organisms in
their ability to obtain food and eat it?

In pairs, you will be investigating the effectiveness of five different methods that can be simulated as
“eating”. Time will be recorded as one person attempts to use one of the different independent
variables (simulating limbs of an animal) to pick up the button and lift it into a paper cup (simulating
the mouth of the organism). The time taken for each variable used will then be compared against
each other to determine the most efficient method!

Materials:

1 Paper cup 1 Button 2 Pop sticks 2 Matches

This Photo by

1 teaspoon 1 pair of tweezers 1 stopwatch

Method:

1. Place the button in front of the paper cup.

2. Allocate “Person A” to use the stopwatch and allocate Person B to pick up the button using
their hands and place it into the paper cup.
3. Person A should start the stopwatch as soon as Person B attempts to pick up the button.

Person A Person B

This Photo by Unknown Author

 4. Once Person B successfully gets the button into the paper cup, Person A should:
a. Find their name and their partners name on the spreadsheet
b. Enter the time that was taken to place the button in the cup underneath the column
“Hands”.
c. If Person B is unable to get the button into the cup after 2 MINUTES, stop attempting
and record 120 seconds.

2.Enter the time taken

1.Find you and your underneath the “Hands”
partners names column

5. Continue to repeat steps 3 and 4 until all of the following variables have been used to try pick
up the button and put it into the paper cup:
a. Pop sticks
b. Matchsticks
c. Tweezers
d. Teaspoon

Person A Person B

This Photo by Unknown Author

6. Once you have completed the task using all five variables, repeat steps 1-5 again. If you were
Student A, you are now Person B. If you were Person B, you are now Person A. DO NOT
RECORD THE SECOND ROUND OF ANSWERS IN THE GRAPH.

Person A Person B

This Photo by Unknown Author

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

TERM DEFINITION USED IN A SENTENCE VERB TENSES

Simulate To look like something, We use the match Simulated (past)

or feel like something, sticks in this task to
Simulating (present)
or behave like simulate the hands of
something. another animal.

Variable Able to be change, or The way we pick up the

likely to change. button is the variable in
this task.
They are always the
same.

Spreadsheet A document that has We enter the time we

columns and rows have recorded into the
which are used to spreadsheet.
calculate numbers and
organise information