Reference no: EM133366569

Question: Imagine a hypothetical a species of creatures called Glitterflies. Glitterflies are a type of butterfly that live in the rainforest.

These creatures have evolved to have brightly colored wings and small, glittering scales on their wings. Glitterfly wings vary in color. If Glitterflies are born during cold temperatures, they develop bright yellow wings, but when they are born during warmer temperatures, they develop dark blue wings. In other words, the wing color of offspring does not depend on their parents' wing color - just the temperature when they are born.

A new predator that eats Glitterflies is introduced to the rainforest where the Glitterflies live. This predator is better at capturing and eating Glitterflies with bright yellow wings than ones with dark blue wings.

The predator also preferentially eats 'older' Glitterflies that are 10-14 days old. Note that Glitterflies reach reproductive age 14 days after birth - at which point they reproduce and die shortly thereafter.

Given the above information, would a biologist agree or disagree with the following statements?

New mutations that cause Glitterfly wings to be darker in color will occur more frequently so the Glitterfly population is better able to survive despite the introduction of the new predator.
A new mutation that shortens the lifespan of Glitterflies, but also causes them to reproduce earlier cannot evolve via natural selection because it shortens the lifespan of Glitterflies.
A new mutation that shortens the lifespan of Glitterflies, but also causes them to reproduce earlier would be more likely to increase in frequency during cold months than in warm months.

The introduction of the new predator that preferentially eats yellow winged Glitterflies will result in natural selection against yellow winged butterflies, and will likely result in fixation of blue winged Glitterflies (e.g. loss of the yellow winged phenotype where we would only see blue winged Glitterflies).