Question

QUESTION 2 If you increase the rainfall to 1,500 mm/year, but keep the other default conditions of 3,950 calories/offspring, which finch population is favored and why? The long beaked finch population is favored because they can extract more calories from the red fruit, and there will be more red fruit in the environment. The short beaked finch population is favored because they can extract more calories from the green fruit, and there will be more green fruit in the environment. The medium beaked finch population is favored because they are able to extract calories from all types of fruit, and their is an even distribution of fruit in the environment. None of the populations are favored, in this condition, all populations will crash.

Answer 1

The short beaked finch population is favoured because they can extract more calories from the green fruits, and there will be more green fruit in the environment, because the increase in rain fall led to the dramatic increase in the growth of seed producing plants, which led the abundance of food for seed eating finches, which have small and short beaks.