Question

Sea gulls prey on snails on the rocky sea coast. The snails vary in color from solid brown to brown and tan striped. The birds suck the soft snail bodies out of the shells and leave the shells behind on the rocks. Scientists picked up 500 empty shells and found that 400 of the shells were solid brown and only 100 were striped. Over the years, what would you expect to happen to the snail population?

Answer 1

the population of snails would go through natural selection to have a better chance of survival over the years to come so the population of striped snails would go up while the opposite for the solid ones

Answer 2

The population of striped snails would increase.

Step-by-step explanation:

• According to the concept of natural selection, the organisms possessing the traits that help them survive better in a given environment are favored more by nature and hence, they produce more offsprings.
• In the given situation, we can see that the seagulls are preying more often on the solid brown snails as the number of their empty shells is more as compared to the striped shells.
• From this, we can conclude that the striped shells are better adapted to survive and protect themselves from their predator and thus, with time natural selection will favor tan striped snails and their population would increase.