Lab Experiment (Lab Report Sample)

Name Course: Professor: Date of submission: Peppered Moth Experiment Introduction The peppered moth is one of the most common insects living in Europe, England, and North America. Up to about the 19th century the majority of the English peppered moth was typically light-colored and remarkably few were a dark black colored (Science Digest 114). This light color allowed the peppered moths to blend in when on the light colored bark of the forest trees. The dark colored peppered moths were easily spotted on the light colored trees and would be an easy target for predators (birds). Some examples of these types of birds would be Flycatchers, Nuthatches, and European Robin. Therefore, there would be a lot less dark colored moths and would reproduce at a much slower rate (Drabble & Margaret 17). The peppered moth experiment is one of the best explanations for the change in moth population over time, which also explains natural selection. As the industrial revolution occurred the trees became darker, and the light colored peppered moths became an easy target for predators (Berra & Tim 56). As the population of the light colored moths decreased because of their appearance, they were not able to reproduce as successfully as they had before. Furthermore, the black peppered moths blended in with the dark colored trees more. Similarly, the black peppered moths survived meaning they could reproduce more and were now more fit than the white peppered moths. According to Andrewartha (287), the story of the peppered moths is found in the abundance of animals. In his story, the animals or the birds relates to the concept of natural selection in the sense that, those birds that were adaptive to given places or an environment would survive better than the ones without adaptive traits. In this case, it implies that, nature only considers the ones with better characteristics and leaves out those with no better traits out. The concept of survival for the fittest can also be related in that the ones that are fit will outnumber the others and thus survive better in any environment. The black and the white moths only differ in a single gene in which one of them the carbonaira allele is dominant over the typical allele. During times of the industrial revolution, the frequency of the black moths increased more than 100 percent in most of the locations that were polluted by smoke. The unpolluted areas were inhabited by the white moths. The figures below shows the difference in the looks of the black and white moths  INCLUDEPICTURE "http://whyevolutionistrue.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/260px-biston-betularia-7200.jpg?w=260&h=173" \* MERGEFORMATINET 
  INCLUDEPICTURE "http://whyevolutionistrue.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/260px-biston-betularia-f-carbonaria-7209.jpg?w=260&h=173" \* MERGEFORMATINET 
 White Moth Black Moth Purpose: The purpose of this lab shall be showing how birds can feed on the English peppered moths on both light barked and dark barked trees using an online simulation. This will reveal the percentage of moths, after one minute, are eaten by the bird and whether it is a time effective method for observing natural selection in action. Hypothesis: A hypothesis is a guess that is supposed to be proven to be either right or wrong according to how the experiment shall be conducted. At the end of the experiment, the researcher should either accept or reject the null hypothesis to show the prove shall be accepted or not. If there are light colored trees, there will be more light colored peppered moths because they camouflage and fit better with their environment better than the dark peppered moths. When the barks on the trees are dark colored, there will be more dark colored peppered moths because they camouflage will fit better with their environment than the light peppered moths. In this experimental design, the hypothesis can be stated as: If the trees are dark, then the likelihood of getting many black moths is high, and if the trees are white, then the white moths shall be many. Materials and methods: The Peppered Moth simulation was conducted using from “ HYPERLINK "/interactives/pepperMoths.swf" /interactives/pepperMoths.swf.” On September 14, 2013, all trials were completed. Each trial lasted four minutes. Four trials were conducted in the light forest. The number of white and dark moths remaining was recorded. The Hardy-Weinberg equation was used to find the ending allele frequencies. The equation for finding the alleles is p2+2pq+q2=1, where q is the recessive allele denoted as b while p is the frequency of the B dominant dark allele. The independent or an endogenous variable is p while the exogenous variable is q meaning that before we had the black moths, we assume that there existed the white moths before the jun...