Natural Selection: Impact on Plant Population Traits

How does natural selection influence the traits of a plant population over time?

What are the key considerations when simulating the effects of natural selection on plant populations based on trait distribution?

Answer:

The student's task is to create a simulation showing the impact of natural selection on a plant population's traits over 5 and 10 years. The simulation will generally depict advantageous traits increasing in frequency, neutral traits remaining stable, and detrimental traits potentially decreasing or vanishing from the population.

The student question pertains to a simulation of natural selection acting on a hypothetical population of plants. Given the initial distribution of traits (medium-tip, wide-tip, and drip-tip leaves) and an understanding of natural selection, one can create simulations for years 5 and 10 to show probable changes in the population's trait distribution. In this simulation, it is expected that plants with traits that offer a reproductive advantage in the presumed environment will increase in representation, while traits that are disadvantageous may decrease or be eliminated over time.

The actual distribution after 5 and 10 years cannot be precisely predicted due to the randomness of reproduction and survival, but an overall trend can be modeled. For instance, if medium-tip leaves are neither beneficial nor harmful, wide-tip leaves offer a distinct advantage, and drip-tip leaves are detrimental, we would expect the percentage of wide-tip leaves to increase, while that of drip-tip leaves would decrease over the 10-year period. Each circle representing 125 organisms would adjust accordingly in quantity for the respective traits.