Blue jays are birds that live in the forest. They can have thick beaks, medium beaks, or thin beaks.

Question

Blue jays use their beaks to get to the seeds they eat. Blue jays with thinner beaks can easily reach and eat the seeds inside pinecones. Blue jays with thicker beaks can easily open and eat seeds with hard shells.

Diagram titled Population containing 2 rows of bird icons. The first row is labeled Thick Beaks and contains 6 bird icons. The second row is labeled Medium Beaks and contains 3 bird icons.
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12. The population of blue jays shown above lives in an environment that has always had seeds with hard shells. Could there ever have been blue jays with thin beaks in this population?
Responses

a
No blue jays could have been born with a thin-beak trait because none of the adult blue jays had that trait to pass down.
No blue jays could have been born with a thin-beak trait because none of the adult blue jays had that trait to pass down.

b
No blue jays could have been born with a thin-beak trait in the past, but some with that trait could be born in the future if the environment changes to have pine cones with seeds.
No blue jays could have been born with a thin-beak trait in the past, but some with that trait could be born in the future if the environment changes to have pine cones with seeds.

c
A blue jay could have been born with a mutation in its genes for the thin-beak trait and lived for a little while, but it would have been more likely to die before it had offspring.
A blue jay could have been born with a mutation in its genes for the thin-beak trait and lived for a little while, but it would have been more likely to die before it had offspring.

d
A blue jay could have been born with a mutation in its genes for the thin-beak trait, but having a mutation in its genes would have caused it to die when it was born.

Answer 1

The best response is b: "No blue jays could have been born with a thin-beak trait in the past, but some with that trait could be born in the future if the environment changes to have pine cones with seeds."

This response accurately reflects that if the population has always lived in an environment with hard-shelled seeds, there would have been no pressure or genetic basis for thin-beak traits to develop. However, it also acknowledges the potential for future changes if the environment were to change (e.g., the introduction of seeds inside pinecones), allowing for the possibilities of mutations or traits arising in future generations.