Most mice living on the mainland of Florida are brown, but the mice that live on the sand dunes of the barrier islands have white fur. The differences in color are heritable, determined by genes such as MC1R. It is intuitive that the light color of beach-dwelling mice is an adaptation for blending into their environment—and thus evading predators. Apply Darwin's four postulates to a population of mice living on sand dunes in coastal Florida.

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Welcome back. Here's the next problem which of the following statements is true regarding pepper moths evolution? Well, let's recall from our content videos that pepper moths were used as an example of evolution by natural selection. Um pepper moths exist in two colors white and dark and they used to exist and sort of uh an even mixture with white sometimes predominating because they would live. Mhm. They lived near trees with light colored bark. So in that case when you have a white pepper moth on a light colored mark, the birds which there were their natural predators had a harder time spotting those light colored moths and they therefore had an advantage were more likely to survive and reproduce. However, after the Industrial Revolution, there was a great amount of pollution in the air. These moths lived in England and this darkened the tree bark with soot. After this the dark colored moths began to predominate and that's because of the changed environment. Now with dark colored trees. Now the dark moths had an advantage in escaping the notice of their predators and were more likely to survive. When pollution lessened, the population of white colored moths again went back up. So with that in mind let's look at our answer choices choice A said dark colored pepper moths are more adapted to clean environments. Well, this is not correct. The dark colored pepper moths were more adapted to the polluted environment because it darkened the trees that they landed on choice B says white colored pepper moths are more adapted to polluted environments. Well not correct because it's the reverse. The white colored pepper moths more adapted to the clean environment where the bark of the trees was light colored, giving them more camouflage. Choice C. Says the environment will not significantly affect the organism. Well, that is obviously not correct here because the environment has a direct impact on the likelihood of the different colored moths to survive. And Choice D. Says individuals with adaptive traits can survive and reproduce successfully. And this is the correct answer because the moths with the adaptive trait, whether the white coloring in a clean environment or the dark coloring in a polluted environment um were more likely to successfully survive and reproduce. So Choice D. Is our correct answer here. See you in the next video.

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Key Concepts

Darwin's Four Postulates

Variation in Populations

Adaptation to Environment