Question

During a drought on the galapagos islands, finches with larger beaks were able to crack the large tough seeds produced by plants that survived the dry conditions. this is an example of ____.

Answer 1

It is an example of directional selection.

The different kinds of natural selection can influence the distribution of phenotypes within a population. In stabilizing selection, an average phenotype is preferred.

In directional selection, a modification in the surrounding changes the spectrum of the observed phenotypes, and in diversifying selection the extreme values for a trait are preferred over the transitional values. This kind of selection usually pushes speciation.

The directional selection, in the field of population genetics, refers to a mode of natural selection in which an extreme phenotype is preferred over other phenotypes, making the allele frequency to change with time in the orientation of that phenotype.