Adaptation and Natural Selection

What are the processes generating genetic diversity?

Mutation and recombination

What are the processes eliminating genetic diversity?

Genetic drift (bottleneck effect and founder effect)

What are the processes that have different effects on genetic diversity?

Gene flow (migration) and mating patterns

What are the processes manipulating genetic diversity?

Selection

What are phenotypic adaptations favoured by?

Natural selection (these phenotypes are structural or functional characteristics)

What do adaptations do?

Improve the fitness of the organism in a particular environment

What is the genetic basis of adaptations?

Adaptations have to be heritable

What are human adaptations?

Human adaptations, or adaptive traits, are phenotype features that have evolved by natural selection because of their specific functional role in some stage of human life history

What is an adaptation considered as?

A testable hypothesis rather than an assumption that all heritable phenotypes have evolved adaptively

What is natural selection?

The preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations

What would happen to variations neither useful or injurious?

Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection and would be left a fluctuating element