Traits
What is a trait?
A biological trait is any specific physical, behavioral, or physiological feature of a living thing. Traits are determined by a combination of an organism's genetics (its DNA) and its environment, and they include everything from eye color and height to a bird's migration patterns.
Adaptive trait
An adaptive trait is any heritable physical, behavioral, or physiological trait that increases an organism's survival and reproductive success in a specific environment.
What trait did the Newts have that allowed them to have an adaptive advantage?
What does distribution mean for a histogram?
The distribution in a trait histogram shows the level of different traits within a population in an environment.
What is a Mutation?
A mistake in copying genes/DNA.
Where do traits come from?
They are inherited by organisms from their parents/preexisting ancestors.
Non-Adaptive Trait
A trait that an organism has that does not increase its ability to survive to reproduce but also does not harm its ability to survive.
If a spider has a venom trait that allows it to paralyze its prey is this adaptive or non-adaptive?
Adaptive
What does high variation mean?
The more variation the more different traits that are present in a population.
Do all mutations cause new traits?
No
What is an example of a trait found within the population of this room?
Varies
Population
In biology, a population is a group of organisms of the same species living in the same geographic area at the same time and capable of interbreeding
Male Mosquito Aggression: Male mosquitoes do not bite or feed on blood, yet many species still swarm and exhibit aggressive flying behavior around human hosts. This expends energy without advancing their survival or reproduction
Non Adaptive
What happens to variation when there is a large variety of fur colors in a population of herbivores and no predators are present in the environment.
The variation will be unchanged
If a cane toad has the mutation that causes them to have stronger legs, is this an adaptive trait? Why?
Yes, because they are better able to get their food.
What are 3 traits that fish have? Are the traits you listed adaptive?
Varies
Natural selection
Natural selection is nature's way of choosing which living things are most likely to survive. Organisms with random traits that are best suited to their environment live longer, reproduce, and pass those winning traits on to their babies. Over time, these helpful traits become more common.
A cactus has spines that help it ward of predation. These spines cover its body and act as a defensive barrier.
Adaptive
What happens to variation when there is a large variety of fur colors in a population of herbivores and many predators are present in the environment. Note: The environment is green and the available fur colors are green, pink and orange.
The variation will lower and green fur will be selected for
A mutation for gills emerges in a population of parrots, would this trait be adaptive or non-adaptive in the jungle where they live? Why?
Not adaptive, because they have no increased survival skills.
Pick an organism and list 7 traits that it has. For each trait list whether is is an adaptive or nonadaptive trait.
varies
Histogram
A histogram visually displays population trait distribution. The height of each bar represents the number of organisms
Remember the beak example
Humans have bellybuttons from when we were fed in utero. These belly buttons are still visible throughout our lives.
Non-Adaptive
What happens to genes that causes a mutation? What do these genes help organisms make?
Mistakes in copying
Proteins
An ellpout has a mutation that allows it to survive in colder water than it typically would. Would this be a useful trait if it was living in a warm environment? Why?
No, because a trait is only adaptive if it helps an organism survive and reproduce in the environment that it lives. This population lives in warm water.