The Peppered Moth as an example of Natural Selection at work

Turn to your neighbor and share what you know about natural selection for 1 minute.

What is natural selection? We have all heard the phrase “survival of the fittest.” This is true if you consider that “biologists use the word fitness to describe how good a particular genotype is at leaving offspring in the next generation relative to how good other genotypes are at it.” In other words…Individuals that get to mate and successfully produce offspring are the most fit because their genes move on to the next generation.

“Of course, fitness is a relative thing. A genotype's fitness depends on the environment in which the organism lives. The fittest genotype during an ice age, for example, is probably not the fittest genotype once the ice age is over.” It is very important to understand that natural selection is dependent on the environment. Understanding Evolution University of California Museum of Paleontology. 22 August 2008.

Take a moment and read the article titled “London’s Peppered Moth” to yourself.

View the peppered moth simulation and fill in your data table. ads/scienceresources/pradeep_fla.swf