Notes on darwin theory of natural selection 0
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key points Charles Darwin was a British naturalist who proposed the theory of biological evolution by natural selection.
Darwin defined evolution as "descent with modification," the idea that species change over time, give rise to new species, and share a common ancestor.
The mechanism that Darwin proposed for evolution is natural selection. Because resources are limited in nature, organisms with heritable traits that favor survival and reproduction will tend to leave more offspring than their peers, causing the traits to increase in frequency over generations.
Natural selection causes populations to become adapted, or increasingly well-suited, to their environments over time. Natural selection depends on the environment and requires existing heritable variation in a group natural selection Importantly, Darwin didn't just propose that organisms evolved. If that had been the beginning and end of his theory, he wouldn't be in as many textbooks as he is today! Instead, Darwin also proposed a mechanism for evolution: natural selection. This mechanism was elegant and logical, and it explained how populations could evolve (undergo descent with modification) in such a way that they became better suited to their environments over time.
Darwin's concept of natural selection was based on several key observations:
Traits are often heritable. In living organisms, many characteristics are inherited, or passed from parent to offspring. (Darwin knew this was the case, even though he did not know that traits were inherited via genes.)
More offspring are produced than can survive. Organisms are capable of producing more offspring than their environments can support. Thus, there is competition for limited resources in each generation.
Offspring vary in their heritable traits. The offspring in any generation will be slightly different from one another in their traits (color, size, shape, etc.), and many of these features will be heritable.
Based on these simple observations, Darwin concluded the following:
In a population, some individuals will have inherited traits that help them survive and reproduce (given the conditions of the environment, such as the predators and food sources present). The individuals with the helpful traits will leave more offspring in the next generation than their peers, since the traits make them more effective at surviving and reproducing.
Because the helpful traits are heritable, and because organisms with these traits leave more offspring, the traits will tend to become more common (present in a larger fraction of the population) in the next generation.
Over generations, the population will become adapted to its environment (as individuals with traits helpful in that environment have consistently greater reproductive success than their peers).