"Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype."
The process by which beneficial traits are selected for and passed on to future generations.
Variation: The differences that exist within a population, in traits such as height, eye color, and behavior.
Heritability: The degree to which genes are responsible for these variations within a population.
Adaptation: How natural selection leads to traits that are better suited to their environment, such as a thicker fur coat allowing an animal to survive in colder climates.
Fitness: How life traits relate to the likelihood of individuals surviving and reproducing.
Natural selection mechanisms: Natural selection can occur through mechanisms such as directional selection, stabilizing selection, and disruptive selection.
Sexual selection: How sexual traits evolve across species, based on the choices made by members of the opposite sex during mating.
Co-evolution: How natural selection affects interactions between two or more species, such as predator-prey relationships.
Phylogenetics: How evolutionary relationships can be reconstructed through the analysis of DNA and other molecular data.
Macroevolution: The study of how organisms have changed over geologic time, leading to the diversity of life we see today.
Microevolution: The study of changes within populations over time, such as the changes in the frequency of a gene within a population.
The role of gene flow and genetic drift in evolution: The ways in which migration and chance events can influence the genetic makeup of populations over time.
Evolutionary developmental biology: The study of how developmental processes have influenced the evolution of traits and species over time.
Biogeography: How the physical environment has influenced the distribution of species across the globe, and how this has affected the evolution of those species.
Evolutionary ecology: How the interactions between organisms and their environment have shaped evolutionary history.
The history of Evolutionary Thought: The history of how ideas about evolution have evolved over time, such as with the debate around creationism vs. evolution.
Directional selection: In directional selection, a certain phenotype (trait) is favored over others, causing the distribution of this trait to shift in one direction. This is usually caused by a change in the environment or a selective pressure that favors a certain trait over others.
Stabilizing selection: This type of selection favors individuals with intermediate phenotypes rather than individuals at either extreme end of the distribution. This can result in a reduction of phenotypic variation within a population.
Disruptive selection: Disruptive selection favors individuals with extreme phenotypes while working against individuals with intermediate phenotypes. This can result in a bimodal distribution of traits.
Artificial selection: This is a form of selection where humans intentionally breed animals or plants in order to produce desired traits. This is often used in agriculture or animal husbandry.
Sexual selection: Sexual selection is a form of natural selection where traits that increase an individual’s chances of mating are favored. This can lead to traits that may not necessarily enhance survival chances but are attractive to potential mates.
Kin selection: Kin selection favors traits that aid in the survival and reproduction of relatives, even if they themselves do not reproduce.
Frequency-dependent selection: Frequency-dependent selection occurs when the fitness of a certain phenotype depends on its frequency within the population. For example, a rare phenotype might be more successful than a more common one.
Group selection: Group selection occurs when traits that are beneficial to the group, rather than individual, can lead to the survival and reproduction of the group as a whole. This type of selection, however, is highly debated among evolutionary biologists.
Intersexual selection: This type of selection occurs when individuals of one sex choose mates based on certain traits, often morphological or behavioral.
Intrasexual selection: Intrasexual selection is competition between members of the same sex for access to mates, often involves features that increase the likelihood of success in competition, such as larger body size or weaponry.
Coevolution: Coevolution is the mutual evolutionary influence of two species on each other.
"It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations."
"Charles Darwin popularised the term 'natural selection', contrasting it with artificial selection, which is intentional, whereas natural selection is not."
"Variation exists within all populations of organisms. This occurs partly because random mutations arise in the genome of an individual organism, and their offspring can inherit such mutations."
"Throughout the lives of the individuals, their genomes interact with their environments to cause variations in traits."
"Other factors affecting reproductive success include sexual selection (now often included in natural selection) and fecundity selection."
"Natural selection acts on the phenotype, the characteristics of the organism which actually interact with the environment."
"The genetic (heritable) basis of any phenotype that gives that phenotype a reproductive advantage may become more common in a population."
"Over time this process can result in populations that specialise for particular ecological niches (microevolution)."
"[Natural selection] may eventually result in speciation (the emergence of new species, macroevolution)."
"Natural selection is a cornerstone of modern biology."
"The concept, published by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in a joint presentation of papers in 1858."
"He described natural selection as analogous to artificial selection, a process by which animals and plants with traits considered desirable by human breeders are systematically favored for reproduction."
"The concept of natural selection originally developed in the absence of a valid theory of heredity; at the time of Darwin's writing, science had yet to develop modern theories of genetics."
"The union of traditional Darwinian evolution with subsequent discoveries in classical genetics formed the modern synthesis of the mid-20th century."
"The addition of molecular genetics has led to evolutionary developmental biology, which explains evolution at the molecular level."
"While genotypes can slowly change by random genetic drift, natural selection remains the primary explanation for adaptive evolution."
"...Darwin's influential 1859 book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life."
"Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype, contrasting it with artificial selection, which is intentional."
"Variation exists within all populations of organisms. This occurs partly because random mutations arise in the genome of an individual organism, and their offspring can inherit such mutations."