Hunger Games Lab Analysis

1. In the Hunger Games Lab, we had three phenotypes for feeding style: "stumpys," with the AA genotype, "knucklers," with the Aa genotype, and "pinchers," with the aa genotype. Stumpys picked up the food, corks, with their wrists, while knucklers picked up food between their knuckles, and pinchers picked up food between their thumbs and index fingers. We went through a cycle of gathering food, followed by either dying, if you didn't gather enough food, or living and reproducing by tossing coins to simulate meiosis and sex. As a whole, this simulated natural selection; those who were better at gathering a lot of food were able to live and pass on their genes for feeding style to their offspring.

2. The best phenotype for capturing food was the pincher. Since people have opposable thumbs, we normally pick things up between our thumbs and other fingers, so pinchers could easily pick up the food.

3. In this lab, we asked the question, "do populations evolve?" We found that populations do evolve. In the first trial (trials represent years), the frequency of the A allele (0.48) was very close to the frequency of the a allele (0.52). However, as time passed, the frequency of the A allele decreased, while the frequency of the a allele increased. By the end of the eight trials, the frequency of the A allele was 0.18, while the frequency of the a allele was 0.82. Also, it is known that evolution is caused by natural selection and that evolution is defined as a change in allele frequency. This data supports our claim because the allele frequency changed in our lab, therefore evolution happened. Also, the lab simulated natural selection, so evolution should have been the result.



4. Some parts of the lab, namely the placement of food, was random. If a stumpy had randomly been next to an area with lots of food, even though stumpys were not good at gathering food, that stumpy would probably have survived, despite not being the superior species.

5. If the food was larger, stumpys would probably be better at gathering food, as it is hard to move your fingers as far apart as a stumpy can move their wrists apart. This is natural selection; due to variation, some organisms of a population will be able to survive changes in the population's niche. If the food was smaller, the pinchers would probably still be the best. This is also natural selection.

6. If there was not incomplete dominance, the results would have been different because there would be no knucklers. Since knucklers were more successful than stumpys in surviving and reproducing, this would not be beneficial to the stumpys. The stumpys died out very early in the lab, and they were only reintroduced due to knucklers mating with other knucklers. If there was no incomplete dominance, the pinchers would have become the only feeding style early on.

7. Natural selection causes evolution. Since natural selection acts on traits, ensuring that helpful traits are passed down to the next generation, the allele frequency of helpful traits increases, and evolution is any change in allele frequency.

8. In order to increase their likelihood of survival and reproduction, some people turned to cheating instead of using their feeding style as instructed. This made them more likely to survive because cheaters often prospered in this lab, which would have increased the allele frequency of their feeding style. This is similar to how stiff competition is in nature, and how organisms try many different methods to survive and reproduce.

9. In evolution, populations evolve, since individuals are stuck with the genes they inherited from their parents. Natural selection acts on phenotype, not genotype, since natural selection cannot change the genes of a population, only the traits.

10. I wonder how long it would take for the stumpys to die out if we continued the trials. I also wonder what would happen if people choose mates randomly, or if people were more interested in fighting off others than collecting food.