Natural Selection Ecosystem Lab

Student Mode

Guided controls and explanations

Selection example

Predators more easily detect moths that contrast with tree bark.

Environment and inheritance

Environmental target 35%

Selection pressure 55%

Mutation variation 5%

Resources / carrying capacity 70%

Generation time 4.0 s

Simulation speed 1×

Visual layers

Trait variationSelection eventsBirth effectsFitness halos

Camera and tracking

No organism trackedTap an organism to capture it

Population results

Generation1

Population36

Mean trait35%

Mean fitness0%

Variation already exists before the environment selects among individuals.

Trait trend across generations

mean traitenvironmentpopulation

Teacher / Demo tools

Interactive teacher lecture

Ready · 11 chapters

A silent five-second hook runs first. Every spoken chapter then changes the ecosystem visually.

Language

Voice source

Teacher voice

Hook: Who will leave offspring?0%

Watch a silent survival event before the teacher begins.

Ready. Nothing starts automatically.

Teacher is saying

Choose a language and start the lecture.

Chapters

Learning objectives

Recognize heritable variation within a population.
Connect environmental pressure to unequal survival and reproduction.
Track how trait frequencies change across generations.
Distinguish adaptation from an individual choosing to change.
Compare camouflage, antibiotic resistance, and beak evolution.

Key concepts

Natural selection requires variation, inheritance, and differences in reproductive success. The environment does not create a needed trait; it changes which existing variants leave more offspring.

Suggested experiments

Switch moth bark from light to dark in one generation.
Raise antibiotic strength and watch resistant bacteria become common.
Increase seed hardness in the finch example.
Set mutation variation to zero, then compare adaptation.
Create a bottleneck and observe random loss of variation.

Questions for exploration

Does the population mean reach the environmental target immediately?
Why can strong selection reduce population size?
Can a useful rare variant disappear by chance?
How does mutation maintain variation?

Seven-question challenge

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