Viviana Herrera Assignment 1The book “the beak of the finch” illustrate some of the basic concepts of evolution, such as variation,natural selection, and extinction. This book analyses some of the Darwin perspectives and theperspectives of other evolutionary scientist after him. The concepts I will talk about were extracted fromthe chapters 3, 4 and 8 of the book. The first concept is variation. It seems that variation is a universalphenomenon that occurs in many species. In his travel to the Galapagos’ Islands, Darwin noticesthirteen species of finches. All of them with variations in their size and length, and variations in theirbeaks. Darwin attributed these variations as a response to environmental change. The individual adaptits body to the environment in order to increase its opportunity of survive. These variations are inheritedfrom the parents to their offspring. In the book, the author shown an example of nature versus nurture,to prove that variation is a biological process that is passed gradually from generation to generation. Hementioned an experiment that consisted on changing the eggs of a couple of big finches with the eggs ofthe couple of small finches. Obviously the size of the offspring was related to the size of their biologicalparents. It means that change and variation is a process that takes time and is passed throughgenerations. The most successful species pass their genes to the other generations creating a newvariation or a new derivate specie. Nevertheless a variation is not always an improvement, sometimes avariation can lead to the extinction of a specie. The author also illustrate variation as a result of competition. During the wet season the Galapagosfinches eat all the same seeds, regarding of their sizes and beaks. However, in the dry season, every birdstarted to specialize in one kind of seed, usually according to their size and their beaks. As we canobserve, in the dry season, the competition increase. It means that the birds need to find other sourcesof food that other bird cannot eat, in that way they can guaranty themselves a supply of food anddecrease the tensions of competition. If two birds of the same specie with the same characteristics getViviana Herrera together in the same habitat, they would enter in conflict leading to natural selection, which determinethat is going to be a winner and a loser. Natural selection and extinction are two terms highly related. Natural selection determines that only onespecies can survive, while the other will die. The rules are simple, the one who best adapt itself to theenvironment is the one who survive. Natural selection is highly related with reproduction. Only the bestgenes are the ones who are going to prevail. This concept is shown in the book through hybridization. Ahybrid is the result of the breeding of two different species. In the book there is an example of a coupleof finches of two species who breed and produced four chicks. Usually, hybrids are sterile, which meanthat they cannot produce offspring, this is a failure and natural selection let this species to die. However,not all hybrids are sterile. In fact in the book we can observe that some of the birds who pair with a birdof another specie, produced stronger and fitted offspring. Their offspring could breed successfully andthey could adapt to the environment better than those pureblood