Question

Strawberry poison dart frogs have different skin colors within their population. The frogs can be categorized broadly using the colors green, blue, yellow, and red. A
researcher performs an experiment using colored clay frogs to represent the different types of frogs to investigate which color morph is preyed upon the most by
snakes. The researcher compares the number of snake attacks on each of the four different colored clay frogs.
200-
150-
Number of Attacks
100
50-
0
green
Blue yellow red
Color of Clay Frogs
Which distribution of strawberry poison dart frogs is likely to exist in nature?
There will be more red-colored frogs in the population than green-colored frogs.
There will be more yellow colored frogs in the population than red-colored frogs
There will be more green colored frogs in the population than yellow-colored frogs.
There will be more blue colored frogs in the population than yellow-colored frogs.

Answer 1

Answer:

There will be more yellow-colored frogs in the population than red-colored frogs

Explanation:

Available data:

• Strawberry poison dart frogs have different skin colors
• The frogs can be categorized broadly using the colors green, blue, yellow, and red.
• Frogs eaten by snakes

Number of snake attacks             Frog color

145 Approx                                          Green

180 Approx                                          Blue

125 Approx                                          Yellow

145 Approx                                          Red

 

The phenotype of individuals and the environment where they live, interact and determines the genes´ destiny in space and time. The result of this interaction and the gene destiny is Natural Selection. Natural selection selects beneficial alleles and increases their frequency in the population.

The attack by snakes is acting as a selective pressure on the frogs´ population. It is an ecological pressure that is modeling the frogs´ phenotype.

Animals that suffer more attacks are the blue ones, followed by green and red frogs. Those that suffer the fewest number of attacks are the yellow individuals.

So natural selection will be acting on this population favoring the alleles that code for yellow color. Genes that express yellow color increase more the frogs´ fitness than genes that code for the other colors. So natural selection increases the frequency of genes coding for yellow color and will decrease the frequency of the other alleles. Probably the less favored will be genes that express blue.