Rock Pocket Mouse: Natural Selection and Color Adaptation Report

This report delves into the color adaptation of the rock pocket mouse, a compelling example of natural selection and evolutionary biology. The study highlights how environmental fluctuations and habitat conditions drive the genetic adaptability of these rodents, leading to variations in coat color. It explores the role of gene flow in shaping the color patterns, particularly melanism, and how migration and habitat preference influence these changes. The research emphasizes that local adaptations are not solely dependent on evolutionary lineage but are also influenced by the rodent's ability to adjust to its environment. The report references several studies to support the connection between color variation in mammals and genetic adaptation, while also recognizing the need for further research into the complex mechanisms governing color changes and the impact of habitat-oriented genetic changes on the mouse's overall adaptation and morphology.

Chameleonic Revelation
Just as the chameleon keeps changing its colour, the rock pocket mouse shows a similar
colour change pattern, researchers are relentlessly struggling to find the stark evidence of
how this could have happened.
Natural selection based on environmental fluctuations phenomenally influences the genetic
adaptability of the living beings (NAS, Avise & Ayala 2009). Rodents keep migrating from
one location to another in the surge of favourable living conditions. This habitual movement
of rodents paves the way to the consistent and uninterrupted flow of their genes between the
selected locations whose topography forces them to translate specific colour pattern as per
their local adaptation capacity.
Ironically, the researchers have no clue of the exact mechanism that the flow of genes and
their interactive pattern with the local environments utilise for increasing or decreasing the
colour-based beauty of the rock pocket mouse. They presume the role of beneficial gene
pooling in transforming the rock pocket mouse’s colour in close resemblance to the rodent
populations of their migrated regions (Hoekstra, Krenz & Nachman 2005). A recently
conducted research study reveals the killer impact of gene flow on the sustenance of
organisms in the new habitat due to their weak natural selection that eventually fails to
withhold the newly mutated genes (Tigano & Friesen 2016). Interestingly, a large number of
the migrated rock pocket mouse reflects the colour of the newly acquired habitat. This
strange genetic variation could be the outcome of a strong and unidentified natural selection
tendency of the rock pocket mouse. How the frequent back and forth movements of the
rodent mouse between nearby habitats leads to its repeated evolutionary changes, requires the
reassessment of the reported drifting pattern and associated colour-changing tendency.
Undoubtedly, melanism or colour changes in rodents governed largely by the frequency of
their migration and comfort level for the selected habitat, rather than the induction of new
genetic changes requiring substantial time. Accordingly, the strength of the rock pocket
mouse’s natural selection presumably reciprocates with the extent and frequency of its
migration-based gene flow. The local adaptations in rodents, therefore, do not necessarily
depend on their evolutionary lineage and rather controlled by their self-adjusting potential or
willingness to comfortably stay in the migrated habitat.

Numerous research findings support the connectedness of colour change variations in
mammals with their genetic processes of adaptation and evolution (Anderson et al. 2009).
However, the researchers still need to explore and deeply analyse the complex genetic
mechanisms governing the colour-changing potential of the rock pocket mouse across
different habitats. They also require investigating the deleterious effects of habitat-oriented
genetic changes of the rock pocket mouse on the crippling of its adaptation and
morphological assortment in the selected habitat.

References
Anderson, TM, vonHoldt, BM, Candille, SI, Musiani, M, Greco, C, Stahler, DR, Smith, DW,
Padhukasahasram, B, Randi, E, Leonard, JA, Bustamante, CD, Ostrander, EA, Tang, H,
Wayne, RK & Barsh, GS 2009, 'Molecular and Evolutionary History of Melanism in North
American Gray Wolves', Science, vol 323, no. 5919, pp. 1339-1343,
<https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2903542/>.
Hoekstra, HE, Krenz, JG & Nachman, MW 2005, 'Local adaptation in the rock pocket mouse
(Chaetodipus intermedius): natural selection and phylogenetic history of populations',
Heredity, pp. 217-227.
NAS, Avise, JC & Ayala, FJ 2009, 'Part I - NATURAL SELECTION, OR ADAPTATION
TO NATURE', in In the Light of Evolution: Volume III: Two Centuries of Darwin, National
Academies Press, Washington (DC, <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK219717/>.
Tigano , A & Friesen , VL 2016, 'Genomics of local adaptation with gene flow', Molecular
Ecology, vol 25, no. 10, pp. 2144-2164, <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26946320>.