Adaptation to an Abrupt Environmental Change

 

Mary Puterbaugh Mulcahy

Tested Studies in Laboratory Teaching, 2005, Volume 26

Abstract

Spreadsheets can be a fun, cheap and useful way to encourage students to explore evolutionary and ecological topics. Creative students can use spreadsheets as a blank artist’s canvas to create simulations for a great variety of natural phenomena. In this workshop, we will explore an example of a spreadsheet model that you or your students might construct. On the spreadsheet, we will manipulate the genetic variation in a simulated population of plants. The genotypes and phenotypes of individuals will be followed over five years. The simulation demonstrates Fisher’s Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection that a population with greater additive genetic variation is more able to adapt to changes than one with less variation. Perhaps even more interesting, the spreadsheet allows you to manipulate how abruptly the environmental change happens. The simulation demonstrates that a population that experiences an abrupt environmental change is more likely to go extinct than one that experiences a gradual change in the environment. The exercise relates well to evolutionary concerns biologists have about global warming.

Keywords:  adaptation, genetic diversity, spreadsheet

Bowling Green State University, Ohio (2004)