1. Natural Selection Study Guide
Look at the beak on each of these finches and imagine how it would be helpful in eating that type of food
Describe specifically how each beak would be an adaptation to the food it eats:
Vegetarian tree finch:________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
Large tree finch: ____________________________________________________
Woodpecker finch:__________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________Warbler finch: _____________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________Cactus finch: ______________________________________________________
Large ground finch: _________________________________________________

2. Darwin pondered how many humans had selectively produced many varieties of farm animals and plants. Farmers chose certain TRAITS they desired. Explain how humans have used SELECTIVE BREEDING over the past 10,000 years to domesticate wolves into all the dog breeds alive today:____________________________________________________
Genetic variation caused wolves to have different traits. Humans killed wolves with traits they did not like. However, they let individual wolves live if they had traits that allowed
them to cooperate with humans. These wolves reproduced, passing on the tame traits. Over time, the wild traits went extinct. This left populations of wolves with only tame traits, dogs.

3. This photo shows a limestone deposit from an ancient seafloor that has been lifted up to form this mountain-top high in the Andes of South America
Identify the book that Darwin read while on the voyage of the Beagle that described how this could happen: Principles of Geology
Identify the author: Charles Lyell
Describe this idea:
Lyell argued that the Earth was much older than anyone imagined and that the same geological processes observed in modern times had been at work for millions of years. He said the world had come about through 'causes now in operation,' not catastrophic events like the Biblical Flood. In his second volume, Lyell argued that species became extinct because they no longer fit their environment as the world changed
Describe how Darwin applied the idea from the book to living things
Darwin realized that as the Earth’s environments changed over long periods of time, different traits may become more or less favorable for living things. The long time span of changes provides time for organisms to adapt through gradual change in characteristics.

4. From reading an essay by THOMAS MALTHUS, (summarized in the graph above) about human population growth and limited resources, Darwin recognized that…
Populations of other organisms are also capable of growing at a faster rate than their resources can grow.
Darwin reasoned that…
Since populations can grow fast through reproduction, resources will limit population growth. Only some individuals can get enough resources to live, and others cannot get enough resources and will die. Individuals with more favorable traits are more likely to get resources to survive.

5. Natural Selection in Five Steps
name & description of step
sketch example
DETAILS TO INCLUDE
Overproduction:
natural populations growing faster (many offspring) than their limited food supply or other resources
Genetic Variation:
genetic variation causes some individuals to have more favorable traits (adaptations) and some individuals to have less favorable traits in that environment (camouflage, helpful structure/behavior)
Struggle to Survive:
most individuals with less favorable traits die, while most individuals with more favorable traits survive
Successful Reproduction:
survivors with more favorable traits reproduce, passing on this trait, few
offspring with this trait are better at the Struggle to Survive in the next generation compared to few offspring with less favorable trait