Which part of the living system did you change?
Labs / Biology
Natural Selection
Each critter wears a heritable color, and the predator preferentially eats the ones that stand out against the ground. Survivors breed with a little mutation, so generation after generation the population drifts toward camouflage. Click critters to hunt them yourself, or switch the background to unleash a brand-new selection pressure.
Labs / Biology / Natural Selection
Natural Selection
Each critter wears a heritable color, and the predator preferentially eats the ones that stand out against the ground. Survivors breed with a little mutation, so generation after generation the population drifts toward camouflage. Click critters to hunt them yourself, or switch the background to unleash a brand-new selection pressure.
Why it matters
Why explore this?
Living systems are connected and constantly changing. This model makes one biological process visible so you can test how its parts affect one another.
Explore
Try the model
Gen 0Pop 42Mean 0.50Camo 0%
Investigate
Questions to test
Predict first, try it in the model, then use what you observe to answer.
What to try
- Watch the mean-trait line chase the dashed background line. Why does the whole population end up matching the ground it lives on?
- Drag the mutation slider to zero once the critters are camouflaged. What happens to the population's ability to adapt if you then change the background?
- Crank mutation up high. Does the population ever settle on perfect camouflage, or does variety keep bubbling back?
- Switch from Meadow to Ocean mid-run. How many generations does it take for the survivors to re-hide, and which critters get eaten first?
- Turn the predator off and hunt only the critters that look obvious to you. Do you drive the same evolution the predator did, or a different one?
Explain
Make sense of what happened
Explain the process as a chain: a change happens, the system responds, and that response affects what happens next. Use an observation from the model as evidence.
Check
Before you leave
How did the system respond?
How would you explain that response?
If you can answer all three using evidence from the model, you understand the main idea. If not, return to Explore and change one setting at a time.