AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Peter and Rosemary Grant have seen evolution happen over the course of just two years. The Grants study the evolution of Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos Islands. The birds have been named for Darwin, in part, because he later theorized that the 13 distinct species were all descendants of a common ancestor.

Detailed explanation-2: -Peter and Rosemary Grant are distinguished for their remarkable long-term studies demonstrating evolution in action in Galápagos finches. They have demonstrated how very rapid changes in body and beak size in response to changes in the food supply are driven by natural selection.

Detailed explanation-3: -Answer and Explanation: Peter and Rosemary observed the changes in the beak size and shape of each finch species. The variation in the size occurs due to the natural selection for food supply.

Detailed explanation-4: -Since 1973, the Grants have spent six months of every year capturing, tagging, and taking blood samples from finches on the island. They have worked to show that natural selection can be seen within a single lifetime, or even within a couple of years.

Detailed explanation-5: -Notable among their many discoveries is the Grants’ uncovering of a phenomenon dubbed character displacement, a process of evolutionary divergence in the face of competition. The discovery was sparked by the arrival on Daphne of the large ground finch G. magnirostris in 1982.