Two populations of lizards (same species) are located on different islands. Thes

Question

Two populations of lizards (same species) are located on different islands. These lizards are not very good swimmers. The lizards on island A all have either gray or green skin, while the lizards on island B all have brown skin. Recently, due to a drop in water levels, a strip of land that links the two islands has been exposed.

a.)How would you expect the two populations to compare to each other after several generations if this strip of land remains exposed? Explain in terms of what skin colors would be on each island.

b.) Name the microevolutionary mechanism at work.

Explanation / Answer

Form the given data,

1)

The skin color of lizards in the island-A is either gray or green skin, therefore here skin color is controlled by the two or more than two genes. The skin color of lizards in the island-B has only brown color, therefore the skin color is controlled by the only one gene and since it is a single color, which is obtained by the loss of variation of inbreeding. The population-A has less inbreeding compared to population-B.

If these two populations are mated due to, then the capacity of inbreeding decreases and genetic variation increases. It results the generation of new progeny with new skin colors. The brown color is remaining in total population B (100%), for example consider it is dominant to the gray and green color. The population-A has 50% of gray and 50% of green, then after several generations, the population of brown color would be more compared to gray and green, it occurs due to change in the allele frequency

2)

The microevolutionary mechanism at work is natural selection. Based on this process of evolution the species, which have more adaptable characters, they will live and weak spices will be shed from the ecosystem.

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