Natural Selection Biological Evolution

Introduction

Natural selection can help to explain the diversity of life on earth. On the other hand, biological evolution refers to the change in inherited characteristics over successive generations in populations of organisms. Biological evolution has completely different characteristics than natural selection. Natural selection is the cause or the mechanism that helps in the evolution. For existing in this system, being adopted is the first thing that any living organism went through. Biological evolution is the main thing that plays a key role in the selection process.

What is Natural Selection?

Natural selection is a process of the nature that helps all the living organisms to get adopted to the environment which eventually helps them to survive. They became more reproductive than the other organisms that have less power of adaptation to their environment. The idea of natural selection was developed by English naturalist Charles Darwin in the first place. He brought the idea of this in his book on the origin of species.

It can be simply described as the process through that the living organisms adapt and change. Every part of the population is different from each other and everyone needs to adopt new traits so that they can adjust with the changing of environment. The most common advantage of natural selection is that, it helps to survive and reproduce.

The Biological Evolution

Figure 1: Human evolution

The word evolution was first mentioned in 1859 in the book named the origin of Species. This book was written by Charles Darwin and he came through the concept of evolution at the time of his journey to the Galapagos Island. The first thing that he observed about living organisms is that they change their physical and anatomical structure in every period, which helps in the process of adaptation. In short, evolution is the scientific theory that helps biologists to explain the process of how living organisms change their inherited characteristics for their better adaptation to the environment.

Evolution is a process that explains how the organisms came to exist and eventually it results in natural selection, the ability helps an organism to adopt the change in the process of natural selection. A French naturalist named Jean-Baptiste Lamarck has explained evolution differently. He explained it as the law of use and disuse by the organs. He also explained that the characteristics failure of some creatures, one of them is the giraffe and its long neck which is an example of the adaptation to nature. This trait is passed on from one generation to another.

How the Natural Selection Drives Evolution?

Evolution is a mechanism or the process that works over time and it results in the change in a population’s genetic components. It also represents the organisms’ adaptation power to change, that helps them to survive in the changing environment

Natural selection is a process that eventually drives evolution. It is a process to increase the beneficial alleles in a population. Those organisms are the product of natural selection and they have more survival and reproductive capacity compared with the other creatures.

Natural Selection and Genetic Drift

The natural selection and the biological evolution both are the concepts that are generated by Charles Darwin. In his concept of evolution, he mentioned two major factors that influence evolution are descent and natural selection. Environmental factors that affect the evolution can be a simple change in the climate, temperature, or the availability of the resources. The nature of the medium picks the fittest one and mark them for the process of evolution.

The other factor that can lead the natural selection is the inheritance. In this nature, if two of the organisms are fighting over the same resource, if one can multiply faster than the other one, the faster one will show the dominance. Nature sets its challenges in the forms, it can be changes in the climate, natural resources and competitions. The one that can inherit the change, they have the chance to survive more.

Conclusion

In the process of natural selection, those get the chance first who are the fittest for the survival. Those, who cannot adapt to the change get less chance of survival,. Some weakness was found in Darwin’s theory about the evolution and natural selection. He was unable to explain the exact cause of discontinuous variations that was observed by him. However, the main thing that he explained about the advantage of the natural selection process was the rate of reproduction, Variations, survival of the fittest and many more.

FAQs

Q1. What is the most common example of biological evolution?

Ans. The most common example of biological evolution is the evolution of the horse. In research, it was traced that the horse was once an animal of dog size that lived more than 50 million years ago, which has several toes on each foot and teeth appropriate for browning. That animal was called the dawn horse.

Q2. What is the cause of the biological evolution?

Ans. The causes that influence the biological evolution are five in number. The five main forces that cause evolution are natural selection, mutation, gene flow, non-random mating, and genetic drift.

Q3. What is natural selection?

Ans. Natural selection is a process that helps living organisms to adopt the changes. It is essential to enhance reproductive success. The most common example of this is the origin of giraffes’ long necks. In ancient times, giraffes were animals just like any deer or the antelope, which means ordinary length neck.

Q4. What are the types of natural selection?

Ans. Natural selection can be divided into three major types, which are directional selection, stabilizing selection and the disruptive selection.