The Different Finch Species in the Phylogeny Shown in the 22.8

question 182

Essay

The different finch species in the phylogeny shown in the 22.8 of the textbook have all evolved on islands of the Galápagos archipelago within the past 3 million years.Molecular clock analysis (see Chapter 23) has been used to determine the dates of the various speciation events in the phylogeny.Geological techniques for dating rock samples (see Chapter 24) have been used to determine the ages of the various Galápagos islands.The table shows the number of species of Darwin's finches and the number of islands that have existed in the archipelago at several times during the past 4 million years. Plot the number of species of Darwin's finches and the number of islands in the Galápagos archipelago (dependent variables) against time (independent variable).
Are the data consistent with the hypothesis that isolation of populations on newly formed islands is related to speciation in this group of birds? Why or why not?

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Definitions:

Selective Attention

Selective attention is the process by which a person focuses on one particular object or task while ignoring other stimuli or information.

Cocktail Party Effects

The ability to focus one's auditory attention on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli, as if at a noisy party.

Inattentional Blindnesses

A psychological phenomenon where an individual fails to perceive an unexpected stimulus in plain sight when their attention is focused on another task or aspect of their environment.

Evolutionary Psychology

A contemporary evolutionary perspective used in the social and natural sciences to scrutinize psychological structures.