Suppose a population of rabbits is introduced to an environment that has hot summers and extremely cold winters. Every winter, many rabbits die because of the cold and the lack of food. The rabbits have a range of ear sizes. Small Ears Medium Ears Large Ears Rabbits lose a lot of their body heat through their ears. Every winter, more of the large-eared rabbits die than the others. Every summer, more of the short-eared rabbits die than the others. At first, there are an equal number of rabbits with each size of ears. After several years, what will the frequency of ear sizes in the population be like?

Question

Adyson Lucas

Biology

27 April, 05:14

Suppose a population of rabbits is introduced to an environment that has hot summers and extremely cold winters. Every winter, many rabbits die because of the cold and the lack of food. The rabbits have a range of ear sizes. Small Ears Medium Ears Large Ears Rabbits lose a lot of their body heat through their ears. Every winter, more of the large-eared rabbits die than the others. Every summer, more of the short-eared rabbits die than the others. At first, there are an equal number of rabbits with each size of ears. After several years, what will the frequency of ear sizes in the population be like?

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Answers (2)

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Darion Yoder · Answer 1

There will be fewer rabbits with large ears than any of the others.

Explanation:

The given problem states that initially the number of rabbits are equal, whether rabbits with large ears or rabbits with small and medium sized ears.

In winters more of the large-eared rabbits die and in summer short-eared rabbits die as compared to other rabbits.

Thus, the given problem makes clear that medium sized ones do not die so frequently. So, the rabbits that will reduce in amount will be either large sized or small sized. After several years, small sized ears will definitely grow. So, the ones that will reduce in amount the most will be the rabbits with large-size ears. Hence, large-sized ear rabbits will be fewer in number.

Emilie Benitez · Answer 2

There will be fewer rabbits with large ears than any of the other ear types.

Explanation:

Summer is the season when rabbit gets the population increase and size so to face the harsh weather conditions of winter.

Rabbits lose heat from their ears also.

It is seen from the figures that in winter more large-ear rabbits die than short or medium one.

Every summer small ear rabbits die.

The large ear rabbit will reduce in size as they will dissipate more heat because of big surface area of ear to escape heat. In winters heat is to be preserved which is not possible with large ear rabbits as the habitat they are living is of extreme cold. The large ear size rabbit will not be able to adapt the cold habitat so it will eventually decrease and get modified towards medium or short ear over a period of time in the process of adaptation.

The summers are comparatively less harsh than winters of the island small ear rabbits would survive along with medium sized as much energy is dissipated in summers.