Quick Evolution Leads to Quiet Crickets

Over the past week, we have been addressing the learning standard that students should be able to:

Give examples of ways in which genetic variation and environmental factors are causes of evolution and the diversity of organisms

We learned about the fictional clipbirds which serve as a model for Darwin's finches. Charles Darwin was under the impression that evolution happens so slowly, we can't actually see it happen in a lifetime. While this idea is correct in many instances, there are some cases where organisms reproduce in a short time period, for example bacteria and crickets.

Today we read the article "Quick Evolution Leads to Quiet Crickets."

Attack of the flesh-eating parasitoid maggots!! Mutant mute crickets run rampant in tropical paradise!! The headlines may sound like a trailer for a cheap horror flick — but in fact, these sensationalist sound bites accurately describe the situation on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. The "flesh-eating parasitoid maggots" are the offspring of the fly, Ormia ochracea, which invaded Hawaii from North America, and the mutant crickets are the flies' would-be victims. The flies follow the chirps of a calling cricket and then deposit a smattering of wriggling maggots onto the cricket's back. The maggots burrow into the cricket, and emerge, much fatter, a week later — killing the cricket in the process. But this fall, biologists Marlene Zuk, John Rotenberry, and Robin Tinghitella announced a breakdown in business-as-usual in this gruesome interaction: in just a few years, the crickets of Kauai have evolved a strategy to avoid becoming a maggot's lunch — but the strategy comes at a cost... To read more click here.

For homework answer the three questions at the bottom of the last page of the packet.