4. During the Industrial Revolution, explain what caused the population of light-colored peppered moths to decrease and the population of dark-colored peppered moths to increase over time. Be sure to include how the ability to survive and reproduce impacts the process of natural selection.

During the industrial revolution in England, the soot from the coal burning factories started dominating the environment. The trees were also darkened as a result and the light-bodies moths that were able to blend with the light-coloured lichens and tree barks were in danger due to their predation by the birds. This lead to the rapid decrease in the light-colored moths. As a result, the moths got adapted to the blackened trees with their transformation into dark-coloured moths which increased rapidly. This was because the allele for the dark-bodied moths is dominant and the allele for the light-bodied moths is recessive. Since birds would find and eat the light-bodied moths, dark-coloured moths increased as a result of natural selection. Thus, these moths with a favorable adaptation to the change in the environment were selected and they reproduced new offspring.