The Evolution of Coloration in Termite Populations
What caused the change in coloration within the termite population?
The dominance of dark-colored termites is the result of natural selection, where environmental factors favored dark pigmentation for better camouflage, increasing their survival and reproduction rates.
How did the concept of natural selection play a role in the evolution of termite coloration?
The dominance of dark-colored termites is the result of natural selection, where environmental factors favored dark pigmentation for better camouflage, increasing their survival and reproduction rates.
The concept illustrated by the predominance of dark-colored termites over several generations is known as natural selection. This process occurs when environmental pressures, such as predation, favor certain heritable traits over others, leading to changes in the genetic makeup of a population. Initially, the termite population had both bright-colored and dark-colored individuals. Over time, the genes for bright coloration may diminish within the population if being bright colored continues to incur a survival disadvantage.
This example resembles the famous case of the peppered moth during the Industrial Revolution in England, where pollution led to darker environments favoring dark-colored moths. The change in the termite population's coloration is thus a result of directional selection, where one extreme phenotype is favored over other phenotypes, causing the allele frequency to shift over generations.