Explain how a knowledge of mechanisms of evolution could be useful to: A public health official dealing with an outbreak of pneumonia in a homeless population. A zoo that wants to start an endangered species breeding program. A Fish and Wildlife zoologist who is concerned about the decline in size and health of bull elk over the last 50 years. Remember this question? Let’s rate some answers!

A public health official dealing with an outbreak of pneumonia in a homeless population : The public health official would need to know about mutation rates because that would determine the disease’s resistance. They would also need to know about migration because that is how the disease spreads. Take into consideration that some of the bacteria may be resistant to the drug and that the population of bacteria will reproduce. Breed the homeless people who are immune to pneumonia to create a race of them that’s immune.

A zoo that wants to start an endangered species breeding program : The zoo would have to know that the species they breed with begin to have similar traits throughout because of inbreeding. You could try to bring in many different individuals in your population to combat the loss of genetic variance lost during a genetic bottleneck. Just keep mating the ones with the best traits so that natural selection will take place and the offspring will have a better chance at surviving.

A Fish and Wildlife zoologist who is concerned about the decline in size and health of bull elk over the last 50 years : Due to hunting and other factors the larger elk will be removed from the population and not be able to reproduce. Over time they would probably change because of their natural selection. Breed the strongest ones with the highest chance of survivability.