Question

A particular type of bird carries the genes for its offspring to either have a short, strong beak or a long beak. The strong beak is great for crushing nuts, while the longer beak is used to get to water in little spaces. Normally, 75% of the bird population have short, strong beaks while only 25% have long beaks. If the area in which birds live experiences a 10-year drought, what change in beak type could be expected in the population?
Question 2 options:
The beaks would not change.
The adult birds would stay the same, but baby birds would all have longer beaks.
More birds would have a short beak.
More birds would have a long beak

Answer 1

more birds would have long beaks

Answer 2

Answer:

More birds would have long beaks in the population after 10 year drought.

Explanation:

Why would birds have long beaks:

• When you look at different bird beaks, you may find an excellent illustration of adaptation.
• Adaptations are characteristics that have evolved to allow animals to flourish in their environment by performing a specific function.
• Although one adaptation may be extremely beneficial to one species in one environment, it may not be beneficial to another species in a different environment.

How adaptation occurs:

• Understanding how adaptations emerge aids understanding of the evolutionary process.
• Plant, animal, and other living organism populations vary over many generations. Natural selection is how scientists refer to this process.
• In a species, natural selection occurs when individuals with features that are better adapted to their environment live longer and produce more infants.
• They pass on the advantageous adaptations to their descendants.
• As a result, these adaptive features become more widespread in the population over time, until practically every member in a species has them.

Why it occurred here:

The 10- year drought has forced the birds to get water from little spaces which uses their long beak and thus the population adapts to have long beaks which are now more useful to them.