Environmental effects on the phenotype

- Environmental effects hinder or allow an organism to reach its full genetic potential. Examples
include:
Some people may have more food/ nutrients than others, allowing them to develop faster and
more fully.
Light intensity and soil quality can affect plants.
Siamese and Burmese cats have a gene that allows the formation of dark pigment at low
temperatures. So, the coldest parts of the animal (the extremities) become dark coloured in
cold environments.

Natural Selection
- Any fertile, healthy animal has the reproductive potential to increase its population. However,
populations rarely increase exponentially. Why?
Biotic factors (caused by other organisms)
1. Predation (larger populations of prey increase predator populations)
2. Competition for food
3. Infection by pathogen (more likely in overcrowded conditions e.g. myxomatosis via fleas for
rabbits)
Abiotic factors
1. Water supply
2. Nutrient levels (greater population means less food available for each organism).
- The selection pressures listed above allow only a small proportion of the young born to grow to
adulthood and reproduce.
- If the pressure of environmental factors is big enough, the population will decrease. Then, it will
be able to increase again. This cycle will repeat itself, oscillating around a mean level.
- If an excess number of organisms are born and few survive to adulthood, while there is variation
in the population, this means that some of the organisms probably survived due to the fact that
they were better adapted to the environment than the others. These surviving organisms can
then reproduce and pass on their advantageous alleles and thus traits to their offspring. After
many generations most of the population will have the advantageous alleles and the other alleles
may even disappear completely.
For example, rabbits with white coats may stand out more than rabbits with brown coats in
forests. This will make them easier prey for predators and decrease their chances of survival.
Such selection pressures increase the chance of the alleles for brown coats being passed o
and decrease the chances of the alleles for the white coat being passed on.
- Natural selection increases the frequency of alleles conferring an advantage while decreasing
the frequency of alleles conferring a disadvantage.

Evolution
- If a new environmental factor or a new allele is introduced, the allele frequencies may also
change leading to directional selection.
- Most natural, however, is stabilising selection as the organisms are already well suited for their
environments