Intense Natural Selection in a Population of Darwin's Finches (Geospizinae) in the Galápagos

Abstract
Survival of Darwin's finches through a drought on Daphne Major Island was nonrandom. Large birds, especially males with large beaks, survived best because they were able to crack the large and hard seeds that predominated in the drought. Selection intensities, calculated by O'Donald's method, are the highest yet recorded for a vertebrate population.