2. 2
Succession and Natural Selection
The succession animation is secondary succession because soil is present the whole time.
It is only primary succession if there were not any species in a totally uninhabited environment,
but there were already trees, shrubs, animals, and aquatic life present.
I hypothesize that the limbless salamander has evolved and came about because of the
region that they live in. Perhaps these specific salamanders resided by a shoreline and to avoid
predators inland, had to escape to the water for safety. After years of going in and out of the
water generations of salamanders started to change or evolve. The salamanders no longer need a
second pair of limbs because they are mostly in the water and it would be considered an
unfavorable trait, according to Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Not all salamanders are
losing their back legs, only the ones in this region. Eventually they might lose both of their sets
of legs and live only on the shore banks and in the water. Maybe even over more time, the
salamander would turn into a strictly aquatic creature and even develop gills to be able to breathe
underwater.
