Natural selection question?

Question

Considering the concept of natural selection, explain why the populations of tigers today are striped, althoughtheir ancient ancestors may have had bodies without stripes??

Answer 1

Listen to the two guys above me. They addressed your question in terms of what natural selection is. Tigers with stripes had a survival advantage over those without, therefore more of them survived to produce offspring. Those offspring would share their genes and (phenotype--the stripes) and again be more likely to survive and reproduce. Can you see how over generations there would be less unstriped tigers and more striped ones? That's how evolution using natural selection  works--the species with characteristics better suited to the environment they are in survive and over the long haul those beneficial characteristic become the dominant or only ones for the species.

Answer 2

the stripes helped them hide, so natural selection began they evolved to hide well. just like evolution of beneficial mutations

Answer 3

As the tigers evolved and started to take up residence in grasslands, those with stripes had an easier time stalking their prey, therefore those are the ones that would be more likely to pass on their genetics. Those without stripes weren't as successful, therefore had less opportunity to pass on their genes. The result is what you see today: tigers have stripes.

Answer 4

At some point, a Tiger ancestor had a mutation that gave it a striped fir coat.  Clearly, this was an advantage to the tiger; and he/she ate well, grew big & strong and made lots of babies that also had stripes.  The striped variety then out competed the non-striped variety.

Answer 5

It may be that their ancestors lived in a savana type environment.  Southern Eurasia and Africa was coined Savanastan because of the extensive savana millions of years ago.  In that environment, stripes might not be favored.  Something looking more a lion may have been the most advantageous marking and color.  One thing to keep in mind about natural selection, it proceeds in steps, each one of which must be very adapted or it will not proceed to the next step.  Once that animal moved into the forest environment, it became advantageous to develop stripes which break up its outline to its prey.

Answer 6

so they can hide in the tall grass and the shadows come off as stripes.  I don't consider it natural selection.  It's the way they were designed.