ABSTRACT

On the return from his journey on the HMS

Beagle. January 4th,1837 Charles Darwin
presented his findings to the Zoological Society
of London about finches collected on the
Galápagos Islands. The results from what was a
curiosity and hobby on the journey became what
we now recognize as the Theory of evolution
(Public Domain, 2016)
through natural selection. Can his early findings
be recreated in a class room setting? Let us find

BEAK TRAITS: out.

Jeremy Lerwill
Physical Anthropology 1020

A SIMULATION Spring 2018 Salt Lake City Community College

OF NATURAL
SELECTION
 Introduction
After surveying the South American coast for three years, Charles Darwin began a new
journey. In September 1835 when he disembarked the HMS Beagle onto the Galapagos Islands.
Though only there for a little over a month, just five weeks, it was this time, his curiosities and
observations that changed the world of science. It was during this time he collected specimens of
finches. It was later as he was returning to England that the realization came to him that the birds
were closely related though all different. Contemplating his notes and studying his specimens led
him to the formulation of the principles of natural selection. Darwin wrote referring to a finch,
“an immigrant first settled on one of the islands, … it would undoubtedly be exposed to different
conditions in the different islands (where) it would have to compete with a different set of
organisms. … Then, natural selection would probably favor different varieties in the different
islands.” The finch beaks needed to change as the birds developed different tastes for fruits,
seeds, or insects picked from the ground or plants. Long, pointed beaks allowed for picking seeds
out of cactus fruits. Shorter, stouter were best for seeds found from the ground. The immigrant
finches would then evolve into one of 14 separate species, each with its own food preferences,
and beak shapes. Three finch types, four beak types and four food types came from his
observations. Tree finches had three types of beaks, parrotlike for fruit, grasping beak for insects
and a probing beak for insects. The warbler finch has a probing beak for insects. Ground finches
had probing beaks for cactus and crushing beaks for seeds.
It was this idea of natural selection that has become one of the best substantiated theories in the
history of science. The quality of his recordkeeping while on the islands, through his observation
notes and documenting the location of his collections has been called into question and seems to
be the reason for the delay on his theory formulation. (PBS, 2001) (Live Science, 2013) “Seeing
this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one
might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had
been taken and modified for different ends...” His theories wouldn’t truly start forming until his
return to England that the finches and other birds collected had adapted to specific environments
and islands where they lived. Thus, leading to the theory that the bird species were not fixed or
unchanging, rather they evolved over time from common ancestors. To this end Newer studies
have been performed to corroborate what was learned on the island, with recent publications
duplicating Darwin’s observations by a team of scientists from Princeton carried out on the small
island of Daphne Major. (Princeton, 2017) Peter and Rosemary Grant had the luxury of studying
at the source with the finches, we will need to do our best in class to simulate the use of beaks
with varied tools and see if we can duplicate at any level the same results.
Hypothesis
I believe that though we will not be able to duplicate the actual results of Darwin or Grants
study, we will be able to replicate how the process works. I believe that we will be able to show,
based upon using varying tools (“beaks”) collecting scattered seeds laid out on a table within a
certain period of time and using the process over multiple generations (timed sessions) we can
imitate the passing down to offspring the most successful beak types. I believe that the larger and
sharper “beaks” will be most effective in passing down the traits. The hair clip being large and
with multiple sharp teeth on it should grasp and collect the most amount f seeds in the allotted
time. If compared to a finch, I believe the hair clip best matches a ground finch with a crushing
beak.

Materials and Methods

A control group of thirty students will be given a “beak” to collect sunflower seeds that have
been randomly scattered in front of and near the student on their table. The beaks used are large
kitchen tongs, chip bag clip, clothes pin, hair clip, tweezer and chop sticks. With thirty students,
five of each beak will be used. The students will be timed for forty-five (45) seconds to collect as
many seeds as able into a small paper cup. After the time has ended the student will empty the
paper cup and count the seeds, laying them out away from the scattered seed sources enabling
verification by peers. The top and bottom ten percent or three student collectors will be moved
aside from the main group. The top three collectors will then pass down their “genetic trait”
(beak / tool type) to the bottom three collectors. If two of one beak and one of another is the top,
then the bottom will match accordingly letting go of their losing beak trait and adopt a new beak
as though the trait was passed down to offspring through genetics. The next timed collection, or
next generation of beak offspring will take place in succession until a total of three generations
have passed.

Results
 BEAK SIMULATION TEST
Initial Gen 1 Gen 2 Gen 3

12

10

8
Survivng
Beaks

6
10
4 8
7 7
6
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
2 4 4 4
3 3 3 3 3
0
Tongs Chip Clip Clothes Pin Hair Clip Tweezer Chop Stick
Initial 5 5 5 5 5 5
Gen 1 5 5 3 6 7 4
Gen 2 4 5 3 7 8 3
Gen 3 4 5 3 5 10 3

From the first generation, clothes pin beaks had the greatest loss with two and chop sticks losing
one. The strongest being the tweezer with a gain of two and hair clip gaining one. In generation
two another chop stick is lost as well as the first tong. The tweezer and hair clip both gaining
one. The top third student for top and bottom of collections were tied with the next higher and
lower ones, so no change was made. In the third and final generation, the only loss was with the
hair clips by two and the increase came from tweezers alone.
Conclusion
Though coming in second placement, the hairclip did very well. This would have been a thriving
bird with many generations ona diet of seeds. The tweezer beaks would mostly resemble a
probing beak, which were used for insects and not seeds, so I am surprised by these results. A
trend is visible after three generations showing weakness in certain “beaks” used and strengths in
others the results indicate that the tweezers would continue to grow, chip clips would stay steady,
with the loss of chop sticks and clothes pins. I believe that these result’s can be duplicated by a
group of student of the same size and make up. I believe that it would be necessary to have
female and males use the same types of beaks, not due to skill or sex, but with the possibility that
hand size may influence the manipulation of use and physical endurance over multiple
generations. I know my clumsy hands have never been able to use chop sticks.This shows that
the hypothesis that beak type selection can be duplicated in process if not type, thus a proving of
the hypothesis. I don’t believe that with this study the type of beak succeeding or failing is as
important as showing that the process is viable. I believe that another group could replicate the
process with just as good of results no matter the beak type results.
 Discussion
Sometimes we don’t realize that we have a specific question until later, as Darwin had. He
simply enjoyed observing and collecting the finches. If He had the fore knowledge of what
would come, he may have treated the island so much more differently. The scientific method
starts with a question. Why? How did the finches gain their beaks? Why did they need different
beaks? Then you research and do background work pertaining to your question. Darwin
observed finches from all over the islands, in all climes and vegetation upon them. Then once
you have more information, you can then create a hypothesis using your original question and
your new knowledge and put it all to a test. Have the beaks replicated by mechanical beaks and
watch their use over multiple generations. Once tested you analyze the results. If your hypothesis
was found to be false, you ask new questions, research more, create a new hypothesis and test
again. If at first you succeeded, then you report your results so that peers can duplicate your
results and build upon them.
I believe that if a practice time was completed prior to starting that the students may have
learned to use their tools differently, just as a living bird would do in the wild. I can only speak
bout the beak I used, a clothes pin. After our first losses we leaned that if we used the pin in
reverse, we could collect nearly as much as did the tweezer. If over successive generations the
test were performed, I believe that the clothes pins would begin to grow. I am not sure how this
may affect the results, due to our initial loss, the results show a decline in clothes pins.
The basics on the theory of evolution by natural selection are that over time favorable variations
will increase in frequency and population variability in natural biological favorability or
unfavourability. That inheritance of traits will be passed down to offspring. With selection
beginning to happen, offspring will survive thus increasing or decreasing viable offspring with
the traits. Due to the increase of offspring, competition then occurs. The offspring with favorable
variation will be more likely to now survive called differential reproductive success. Over
generations and time, more of a certain trait will start becoming the common rather than the rare.
Thus as the chopsticks failed to survive through the generations and the tweezers collected more
seeds and passed their traits down to offspring, there became less competition between the two
types with tweezers winning out. Over many generations the Chopsticks would no long be a
viable competitor at all, or even be alive to compete with.

Bibliography
American Museum of Natural History, A. (n.d.). https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/darwin/a-trip-around-the-
world/. Retrieved from https://www.amnh.org.

Live Science, R. L. (2013, January 13). https://www.livescience.com/32409-whats-so-special-about-darwins-

finches.html. Retrieved from https://www.livescience.com.

PBS. (2001). http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/6/l_016_02.html. Retrieved from

http://www.pbs.org.
Princeton, O. o. (2017, November 27). https://www.princeton.edu/news/2017/11/27/study-darwins-finches-
reveals-new-species-can-develop-little-two-generations. Retrieved from https://www.princeton.edu.

Public Domain. (2016, May 27). Darwin's finches or Galapagos finches. Darwin, 1845. Figure 18 01 01.jpg.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Figure_18_01_01.jpg.