Natural Selection

And the
Rock Pocket Mice
Name: Nelson Garcia
Directions
1. Write your name on Slide 1
2. Watch the HHMI video: Natural Selection and the Rock Pocket
Mouse.
3. Answer questions 1-10 in the slides. Note: time stamps are
available on the more difficult questions.
4. This is a graded activity, so be sure to answer ALL 10 Questions.
You can discuss questions with members of your group for help.
5. Submit your completed assignment to Schoology in pdf form.
WATCH THE VIDEO!!
1. Compare and Contrast the two possible environments in New Mexico’s Valley of Fire where the
Rock Pocket Mice live.

The compare and contrast of New Mexicos Valley is the light desert the ground is way lighter, but in
the darker lava desert the ground is more darker causing the Rock Pocket Mice to mutate or else
they will get hunted.
2. List possible predators of the Rock Pocket Mouse.

Hawk, Eagle, Coyotes.

3. What is the selective pressure driving the change in the color of the populations of the Rock Pocket
Mouse?

The selective pressure causing the change in color of the population is because if the pocket mouse
does not adapt to its surroundings of the color of the desert they will be spotted easily and hunted
down.
4. How did dark colored mice first enter the population?

Dark colored mice entered the population by a mutation which allowed them to expand and have
more dark colored mice.

5. What is a mutation? Are they good or bad? (3:59)

A mutation is a change in the chemical letters that make our genes It is a copying error when our
cells divide.Mutations are neither good or bad whether they or favored or rejected.
6. What is biological fitness? Which variety of Rock Pocket Mouse do you think would be most fit in the
environment pictured below? Why?

Biological fitness means the ability to pass on genetically, but the dark pocket mice will benefit since
the ground is dark it would make it harder to prey.

Light morph Dark morph

7. If only one mouse born out of 100,000 is a mutant (dark), how does dark fur spread to an entire
population? (5:14)

If only one mouse out 100,000 is born in order for the dark fur to spread time needs to be given for
the dark fur to spread. Also, depending on the advantage it could make it faster for it to spread.
8. If dark color gives the Rock Pocket Mice living on a lava flow a 1% advantage over light colored
mice, and 1% of the population had the dark mutation, how long will it take for 95% of the population
to be dark? It will take about 1,000 years for 95% percent of the population to be dark fur.

9. How does the time change if the selective advantage increased to 10%?

Instead of 1,000 years it would take 100 years only.

10. When scientists looked at other Rock Pocket Mice populations on lava flows, in other parts of the
Southwest, hundreds of miles away, what did they discover?

They discovered that evolution can repeat itself and why evolutionary change is never ending. As
environments transform so must the species.