Imagine you are a scientist observing rats in the wild. As the rats reproduce, rats born with white fur slowly begin to outnumber rats with black fur
. You begin to ask yourself why this is happening and start to research possible reasons for the shift in fur color.
One possibility could be that rats with white fur are better adapted to their environment. Perhaps the area they inhabit has light-colored rocks or soil, making it easier for white rats to hide from predators. Another possibility could be genetic drift, where random mutations in the rat population over time lead to an increase in the white fur trait.
To test these hypotheses, you could conduct experiments to observe the behavior of both white and black rats in their natural habitat, and also study the genetic makeup of the rat population to determine if any particular genes are more common in white rats. By doing so, you may be able to identify the underlying factors that are driving the shift in fur color, and gain a deeper understanding of the evolutionary processes that are at work in the natural world.