Question

What conclusion do you draw from the data presented above?

Short answer

The two populations, such as male and female guppies, are available in a pool with their mating choice based on the color pattern of fish. The predation is intense on adult fish with drab color rather than predation on juvenile guppies.

Step-by-step solution

Predator

When an animal hunts another animal and uses it as food without giving that animal (prey) a chance to escape an attack is called a predator. The several predator kinds are parasites (feed on hosts to drive nutrition), herbivores (like cow, goat, and deer), and carnivores (tiger and lion).

Guppy

The guppy is a small live-bearing tropical fish found in freshwater habitats and used as a model fish species to be studied during evolution and ecology research. Examples of food sources for guppy are earthworms, algae, fish, bloodworms, and spirulina.

The guppies’ characteristics include elongated body, sexual dimorphism, feathery tailfins, splashes on male guppy, and the grey body color of the female guppy (wild-type).

Making and testing prediction

The testing prediction led to a new hypothesis; guppies are found in the pool, and only the male guppy has a gene that expresses and codes for its bright color. The bright color of male guppies provides them with the advantage to win out in the pool.

The female guppies only choose bright-colored male guppies for mating rather than drab-colored (dull color) guppies.

The juvenile guppy (four weeks old) acts as prey for predator guppy-like kill fish. The drab-colored adult guppies are transferred to a pool that consists of more predatory fish.

The bright-colored guppies are produced and act as a descendant species of those adult guppies because female guppies only chose bright-colored fish for mating.