What is natural selection and how does the process work?
Natural selection is the process by which according to Darwin, individuals with traits that make them more fit for their local environments tend to survive and reproduce. The process works in the following way:
- Variation. Organisms (within populations) exhibit individual variation in appearance and behavior. These variations may involve body size, hair color, facial markings, voice properties, or number of offspring. On the other hand, some traits show little to no variation among individuals—for example, number of eyes in vertebrates.
- Inheritance. Some traits are consistently passed on from parent to offspring. Such traits are heritable, whereas other traits are strongly influenced by environmental conditions and show weak heritability.
- High rate of population growth. Most populations have more offspring each year than local resources can support leading to a struggle for resources. Each generation experiences substantial mortality.
- Differential survival and reproduction. Individuals possessing traits well suited for the struggle for local resources will contribute more offspring to the next generation.
- Mutations coupled with natural selection are the cause of most micro evolution
- The pool of alleles in a population is affected by chance events such as genetic drift and gene flow
- At least five mass extinctions have altered the course of macro evolution
- An evolutionary tree visually depicts relationships between species
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