Adaptation & Natural Selection

What is necessary for a species to survive?

Reproduction, Resources, Avoid threats

What is an adaptation?

An adaptation is a trait or characteristic that helps an organism survive and reproduce in its environment. Adaptations can be structural, behavioral, or functioinal.

Structural

Physical features that improve survival like thick fur on polar bears for warmth.

Behavourial

Actions or behaviors that help survival like birds migrating to warmer climates in winter.

Functional

Internal body processes that enhance survival like venom in snakes for defense.

Why do different birds have different shaped beaks?

Different birds have different shaped beaks because their beaks are adapted to their diet and feeding habits. This is an example of structural adaptation, allowing birds to gather and consume food sources.

Irreducible Complexity

Irreducible Complexity is the idea that some biological systems are so complex and interdependent that they could not have evolved through small gradual changes.

Example of Irreducible Complexity

This can be seen a giraffe's heart must generate extremely high blood pressure twice that of humans to pump blood up its long neck to the brain. If this high-pressure system weren’t in place, the brain wouldn’t receive enough oxygen, leading to unconsciousness.

Natural selection

Natural selection is the process where living things with helpful traits survive and reproduce, passing those traits to the next generation.

Arificial Selection

Artificial selection is the process by which humans selectively organism to develop specific traits

Speciation

Speciation is the process by which one species splits into two or more new species over time. Natural selection drives speciation by promoting adaptations to different environments, varitation through genetic diversity and reproductive isolation.

Species and population

A species is a group of organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring in nature.A population is a group of individuals of the same species that live in the same area at the same time.

Charles Darwin

Charles Darwin proposed the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection.

Homologoys strutures

characteristic with the same basic structure, while having different functions.

Analogous structures

not from the same gene pool, though may look the same.

Fitness

fitness refers to an organism’s ability to survive and reproduce in its environment. The higher an organism's fitness, the more likely it is to pass its genes to the next generation

Selective pressure

Selective pressure is any environmental factor that affects an organism’s ability to survive and reproduce.

Is Artificial selection apart of evaluation by natural selection

No, artificial selection is not a part of evolution by natural selection. While both processes involve changes in traits within populations over time, they are distinct concepts.