Final answer:
The fur color of Rock Pocket Mice is influenced by natural selection, where darker or lighter fur provides a survival advantage depending on the color of the rocks in their habitat. Genetic factors such as epistasis and temperature-sensitive proteins also play roles. Directional selection can lead to changes in fur color in response to environmental changes.
Step-by-step explanation:
The biological process that could influence the fur color of Rock Pocket Mice living on different colored rocks is natural selection. In environments with dark rocks, mice with darker fur would be less visible to predators, making them more likely to survive and reproduce. This would lead to an increase in the frequency of genes coding for darker fur. Conversely, in habitats with light-colored rocks, mice with lighter fur would have a survival advantage for similar reasons. Moreover, genetic mechanisms such as the gene at the separate locus (C) responsible for pigment production can cause variations in coat color; for instance, mice with a cc genotype are albino. This interaction between genes is an example of epistasis, where the expression of one gene is subordinate to another.
In cases like the Arctic foxes and rabbits, temperature-sensitive proteins affect coloration due to the proteins not folding correctly at colder temperatures, leading to lighter fur in winter and darker during summer. Additionally, an environmental shift can lead to directional selection, where the genetic variance of a population shifts towards a new fit phenotype that is more adapted to the changing environmental conditions.