_Biology _
By: Joe Morgan
Every organism at one time or another has to learn to adapt to a new
environment. This is why evolution of organism is needed in order to survive
changes to its environment, such as the case of the flightless birds. For one
reason or another over a period of 100,000 years the need for wings was
unnecessary to their survival. There could be many reasons why the birds
evolved to be more adaptable to their environmentA small population of
birds would have to replenish and start a new population. In all populations
there are great reproductive potential to replace numbers and expand the
number of population. After their population grew there would be a leveling
off of the population once it reached a stable size. The birds' population
would become stable due a lack of food to support every bird in the
population, along with predators helped to contribute to keeping the
population stable After being on the island a while the birds' population
would start showing a variation in different traits. Such things as color,
wing size and overall size may vary, due to predators and the terrain of the
environment. Eventually the birds evolved to the point where the use of their
wings was no longer needed, as a necessity to survive. The adaptation could
have been because flying itself took to much energy, so to conserve food they
didn't fly too much. The bird's food also could have been close to the ground
and there was no need to really fly. Another thing could have been that it was
hard for predators to catch the birds if they stayed in think under brush or
traveled along the ground. For whatever reason the birds didn't need their
wings this trait was passed of from generation to generation. The reason this
trait was passed on was because it helped the survival of these individual
birds. They were able to reproduce and pass these traits through heredity.
Word Count: 329
| 
