Natural Selection in Action: Lactose Tolerance

• Students act as part of the larger (class) research team that is testing for lactose tolerance in two related, yet isolated island populations. Lab groups will test the “digestive juices” collected from the population adding milk to determine whether lactase is present to break down lactose. One of the populations domesticated cattle (dairy source) while the other did not. The lab focuses on the impact of environmental pressures in directing natural selection for traits that already exist within a population.

Items included in this lab are listed below.