Do you see what I see?

Name_____________________________
Lesson 6: Why do guppies have a favorite color?
Guppy Game Student Sheet
Before you begin
1. What kind of guppy do you have? Put a star above your guppy on the table below.
2. Within y our group, fill out the table for your guppies.

Guppy Information

Fancy Female Fancy Male Wild Female Wild Male

Trait and relative

threshold

Relative
threshold

Advantage or
disadvantage for
survival?
How?

Advantage or
disadvantage for
reproduction?
How?
Do you see what I see?
Name_____________________________
Lesson 6: Why do guppies have a favorite color?

Habitat Information
How will your guppy do in this Which guppy will do the best in
Habitat Mechanism
environment? this environment?

Practice
Control
Pond

Fish
Easy survival
Tank

Amazon Difficult
River survival

Quiet Difficult
Brook reproduction

Murky Threshold
Pond reduced

Clear Threshold
Stream increased

Questions
1. Describe your general rationale for your predictions. Consider the following questions:
a. Will one guppy do better or worse than the others?
b. Will one habitat be better or worse than others?
c. Will the sex of the guppy matter?
d. Will the strength of the trait (highness of threshold) matter?
Do you see what I see?
Name_____________________________
Lesson 6: Why do guppies have a favorite color?

Data Analysis
Create a graph of the pooled class data in the space below.

Questions
1. Which habitat is the control?

2. Compared to the control, in which habitat(s) did your guppy do better?

Why? (Hint: think about survival and reproduction)

3. Compared to the control, in which habitat(s) did your guppy do worse?

Why? (Hint: think about survival and reproduction)

4. Compared to the control, which two types of guppies did the best for which habitat?
Why? (Hint: think about survival and reproduction)
Do you see what I see?
Name_____________________________
Lesson 6: Why do guppies have a favorite color?

General analysis
5. Which two types of guppies tended to do better no matter what habitat they were in?

6. What do these two types of guppies have in common? (Look at your Guppy Information
table on the first page)

7. What does that tell you about survival and reproduction?

8. Examining the traits of the guppies that tended to do the best, what is the strongest
selective pressure that drives female guppy evolution?

9. Likewise, what is the strongest selective pressure that drives male guppy evolution?

10. What counters this selective pressure?

Do you see what I see?
Name_____________________________
Lesson 6: Why do guppies have a favorite color?

Putting it all together.

Create a scientific explanation for the question: What drives evolution in guppies?