A species of marine snails have either solid or striped shells. Scientists found that 37 percent of the snail population was striped, and 63 percent was solid. Sea birds are the main predator and when scientists studied their diet, they found that the birds ate more striped snails than solid snails. What could scientists conclude about the snails?

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Biology

Shyann

19 December, 14:56

A species of marine snails have either solid or striped shells. Scientists found that 37 percent of the snail population was striped, and 63 percent was solid. Sea birds are the main predator and when scientists studied their diet, they found that the birds ate more striped snails than solid snails. What could scientists conclude about the snails?

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Ivy Herman · Answer 1

The scientist can conclude that the snails that have a solid shell are more adapted to the environment than the striped ones.

This is an example of the directional type of natural selection, where one extreme of the phenotype (in this case the solid shell) is favored. The scientists can use this information to predict the future development in the snail population and to hypothesize that the number of the solid shell snails is going to increase in the future and the numbers of the stripped snails are going to decrease.