Dogs are bred by humans so not a good choice for thinking about natural selectio
Dogs are bred by humans so not a good choice for thinking about natural selection and Peacocks are a better choice for sexual selection than natural selection and you are not thinking about a sexual selection right now.
the steps of natural selection
start with variation in a trait in a population which is the result of a random mutation that has occurred during the process of meiosis. ( ex. the species is a spider and the spider has tentacles that they breath through so they can bury themselves in sand and still breath. a little spider is born and its tentacle can also function in water but no one knows this yet because it hasn’t needed to work that way yet.
Then there is some change in the environment. – ex. SO if it was a dry desert but now it has rained for a century in that area and now it is a lake thats a change in the environment
There are members of the population now with a variety of that specific trait which will help them survive TO REPRODUCE at a greater rate than the members of the population without that variation. ex. So now all the little spiders who have the weird tentacle that also can breath in water survive TO REPRODUCE and the others have a harder time surviving AND REPRODUCING.
CONCLUSION – Ex. Overtime the water breathing spiders survive and therefore reproduce at a greater rate than the other spiders and so the species seems to have evolved from sand breathers to water breathers.
Remember Natural Selection is a process, the steps in this process Natural selection effects one trait in one species. this is the way it works .
Useful format for understanding the steps in the process of NATURAL SELECTION.
Species = Spiders
Variation = non tentacled vs tentacled – a variation that emerged from a random mutation prior to any change in the environment
Change in the environment = desert area is flooded and is now a lake
Effect on species gene pool = Spiders with tentacles survive at a greater rate and thus produce more offspring than the non-tentacled variety.
Outcome= over time it appears that the species has evolved from a non-tentacled species to a tentacled species.
https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolution-101/mecha…
To Do:
Thinking of this scenario ,which illustrates the process of natural selection and its role as a force of evolution, you need to explain why variation in a species is so important for the survival of that species.
Fitness is defined in science as those variations of the species that are able to leave behind a greater number of offspring that are viable and fertile than other variations in the species are able to. Give an example that you can think of that helps you understand this genetic fitness.
