Today there are now at least thirteen species of finches on the Galapagos Islands and all of them evolved from one ancestral species, which colonized the islands a few million years ago. What steps lead to speciation and a diverse range of finch types?

Answers:

a.) The ancestral finch was a ground-dwelling, seed-eating finch.

b.) The ecological niches throughout the islands exert selection pressures that push specific birds in various directions.

c.) In the original population of finches, variations existed.

f.) Different physical traits helped certain finches survive in certain niches, eating specific food.

interphase

the period of cell growth when the cell synthesizes new molecules and organelles. the cell is not dividing and it constitutes the majority of the time spent in the cell cycle

prophase

changes occur in the nucleus and cytoplasm. the chromatin condenses to form structures (sister chromatids) visible with a light microscope and the mitotic spindle begins to form, but the nucleus is still in tact

prometaphase

the nuclear envelope fragments and the spindle microtubules attach to the kinetochores of the sister chromatids

metaphase

all the cell's duplicated chromosomes are lined up at an imaginary plane equidistant between the poles of the mitotic spindle

anaphase

begins when sister chromatids separate from each other and ending when a complete set of daughter chromosomes arrives at each of the two poles of the cell

telophase

the daughter nuclei form at the two poles of a cell

cytokinesis

the division of a cytoplasm to form two separate daughter cells. usually occurs during telophase during mitosis. this and mitosis make up to mitotic (m) phase of the cell cycle