Question

for your study, you will be examining a specific population of spiny cacti, which is originally in genetic equilibrium. a road is built quite close to the study site, which keeps away the treacherous and parasitic insects, but with the road comes the tourists. in many desert areas of the united states, passing cactus lovers like to pick up a souvenir cactus to take home with them after a day - trip out into the desert. this is a serious problem in some areas because the tourists always take the better - looking cacti, and these happen to be the ones with the middle - spine - numbers. years of collecting have left their toll on the roadside cacti. using this background knowledge and the data collected below, create a graph of both the original population of cacti and the current population on a piece of graph paper. place the number of cacti on the y axis (count by 1’s) and the number of spines on the x axis (start at 70 and count by 5’s). remember to label your x and y axis and give your graph a title.

original population

number of cactus	number of spines
12	82
25	95
11	106
8	118
4	122
2	130

current population (years later)

number of cactus	number of spines
22	80
5	91
12	108
14	116
9	120
4	129

what type of selection does this graph represent?

Explanation:

El problema trata sobre la selección natural en una población de cactus, donde los turistas toman los cactus con números de espinas intermedios. La selección disruptiva (o diversificante) ocurre cuando la selección elimina los fenotipos intermedios, favoreciendo los extremos. Aquí, la población original tenía una distribución más normal, y la actual tiene menos cactus con espinas intermedias y más en los extremos (bajas y altas cantidades de espinas), lo que indica selección disruptiva.

Answer:

Disruptive Selection (Selección Disruptiva)