Who Wants to Live a Million Years: Analysis of a Natural Selection Simulation

1. It took me two generations to win the game. I think it took this long because I placed diverse variants of the species and natural selection made sure that the types that had the characteristics to survive lived on. I think this means that most real species on Earth have to adapt to the environment in order for the species to survive a long period of time.
2. At first I chose the bulky, stripy, long necked, and long legged traits because   I honestly just wanted to try it out and see where it landed me. I didn’t know how the environment would change, so I decided that having diverse traits would help my species survive. Stripes and long legs helped me survive longer because of predators and more accessibility to food.
3. In my opinion, the population would be affected more by genetic drift because the population is so small. When I played the game, the species was not furry, but when the climate started to warm up they all just started to get furry.
4. Having long legs, long necks, and short hair seemed to be dominant. Being really furry, having short legs, and short necks seemed to be recessive. This is because every time I played, the legs and necks seemed to grow longer and the species’ hair was normally short. Sometimes it was difficult to get the species to get furry. Whenever I started off with the species having all short legs, their legs always grew out. Finally, if I only had one in the species who had a medium length neck, the species would always eventually grow their necks out.
5. Here are the optimum characteristics to survive certain climates and conditions in the game: Cold conditions would require being bulky, furry, and having short legs. Hot conditions would require being thin and hairless. A new large predator on the scene would require long legs and stripes. A new tall food source would require a long neck (maybe long legs as well [height])
6. I would include migration, more species other than the predator, and non-random mating to improve the game. Migration would be more realistic because over time species will eventually migrate for resources. Other species would result in competition with other animals which could affect physical characteristics of the species. Non-random mating would add depth to the game.