Breeding Bunnies: Discussion Questions

My original hypothesis was that, as the generations changed, the population would become predominantly thick-haired. This hypothesis proved to be right, because by the third generation the gene frequency of thick-hair was 81% and thin-hair was 19%. As the generations changed, the predominance of the thick-hair could be easily observed through the change in alleles. In the first generations, the number of alleles of F was 49 and of f was 49 too, 50%. By the third generation, the number of F alleles was 39 and f was 9, meaning that now, the f alleles only accounted for 19%.
In a real habitat world, considering immigration and emigration, the difference between F alleles and f alleles would only increase. This would occur because the rabbits immigrating to the top of the mountain will only go there if they know that they can survive, and the ones that think they cannot, will emigrate. To simulate this effect, we would have to add some F alleles for each generation, and take away the same amount of f alleles.
Because we have not shared our results with the class yet, I am not sure of what the other groups, who represent the bottom of the mountain and the middle of the mountain have found. Never the less, based on our results I can imagine what they had. The group that represented the bottom of the mountain probably had opposite findings. The predominance of the f alleles was clear and it probably occurred at approximately the same rate as ours. This would happen because the rabbits of the bottom of the mountain cannot have very thick hair because they would be too hot. The group that represented the middle of the mountain probably had a stable number of f and F alleles, but a clear predominance of the Ff individuals. This is so, because in the middle of the mountain, the rabbits need to have a hair of intermediate thickness.
The result of this simulation is an example of evolution because as the rabbits spread across the mountain because of natural causes, the populations adapted to best fit the environment. This represents the survival of the fittest. The rabbits fittest for the environment survived, and their predominance soon became a complete dominance.