Think about natural selection and how selection pressures influence populations.
Change settings in this NetLogo model to watch the sheep population evolve in response to different selection pressures.
Mulitple graphs display population statistics as the model runs.
Conflicting Selection Pressures
Observe how heredity and natural selection allow a population to adapt to a changing environment by making favorable mutations more common and unfavorable mutations less common.
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The Java Runtime Environment version 5 (sometimes referred to as 1.5) or later with Java Webstart is required to run any of the activities. You can download it at: java.com.
Explore how populations change over time in a NetLogo model of sheep and grass. Experiment with the initial number of sheep, the sheep birthrate, the amount of energy sheep gain from the grass, and the rate at which the grass re-grows. Remove sheep that have a particular trait (better teeth) from the population, then watch what happens to the sheep teeth trait in the population as a whole. Consider conflicting selection pressures to make predictions about other instances of natural selection.
Download & Launch
Download Size: 25 MB
WARNING: Your data will not be saved.
To save data, run this activity as a registered user. You can register at the project portal. Please view the requirements below before launching this activity.
Requirements
The Java Runtime Environment version 5 (sometimes referred to as 1.5) or later with Java Webstart is required to run any of the activities. You can download it at: java.com.
The download for this activity will require 25 MB of disk space.
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