Natural and Artificial Selection

In the dishes, I dropped the appropriate treatment into the center, where the marks were made. Next, I closed the petri dishes, taped them up, and let them sit at room temperature for a week. Then I opened them up to take two measurements. The first measurement was the number of seeds germinated. The second measurement was to measure the seedling lengths.

Evolution is a change in the characteristic of living organism through time. Modern synthesis, one of the greatest intellectual achievements of biology, could explain how mutations and natural selection could produced large-scale evolutionary change. There are 4 mechanisms for evolution to occur; mutation, gene flow, genetic drift and natural selection.
Although, there are a number of misconceptions about evolution; it does not explain the origins of life, it is not progressive, natural selection is not about the survival of the fittest individuals in a population, humans are not currently evolving, it does not make organism better designed nor does it gives organism what they need to survive. This essay will describe further, 3 common misconceptions

Over the millions of years organisms have been present on earth, there has been many forms of evidence to suggest animals are evolving through natural selection. However, the question still remains as to whether homo sapiens are still evolving through natural selection. Through the nature of science being subject to change and many new discoveries being made each day, it is difficult to make clear confined theories and conclusions, which will not be impacted on in the future.

Many people are familiar with the words natural selection, an idea that was popularized by Darwin in the 19th century; to simply define it, natural selection is nature’s editing mechanism that results in the favoring of some individuals over others when exposed to certain environmental factors. Artificial selection parallels the process of natural selection but with an added twist: the involvement of human beings. Artificial selection is “a process in which humans consciously select for or against particular features in organisms” allowing “only organisms with the desired feature to reproduce or may provide more resources to the organisms with the desired feature” (Artificial Selection, n.d.).

One thing about natural selection that many people do not understand that natural selection does not increase the odds of survival for a species, but for individuals in that species. This makes sense when someone considers humans. Humans live in many social cultures, where for instance, the odds of survival in a group can be improved by the selection of certain traits that does not improve an individual’s odds of survival. Coyne states, one never sees the type of adaptations that benefit the group to the detriment of an individual (p.122).

Evolutionary biology has always interested me, specifically the mechanisms of natural selection and how species adapt to their environment. It started with my love for animals and nature when I was little. I spent my summers working with horses at a local corral, where I would ride around the surrounding wilderness areas. My favorite part about riding in the mountains was watching the change in plant and animal species as the elevation changed. It never ceased to amaze me how the alpine tree line was always so sudden. Humongous pine trees would give way to the short, shrubby plants of the alpine tundra so uniformly and noticeably. I have always wondered about the environmental conditions that cause species to distribute themselves in

Evolution is the process of biological change by which descendants come to differ from their ancestors. Natural Selection is when an individual with the best trait survive and breed in more population. Larger populations of organisms with the desired traits will then occur and organisms will evolve. The four principles of Natural Selection are variation, over production, adaptation, and descent with modification. Charles Darwin, an English naturalist and geologist saw two major trends within organisms which were variation and adaptation. Variations are differences in individuals’ physical traits compared to other individuals. In the Galapagos Islands Darwin noticed that finches had different beak sizes and shapes. Darwin then concluded that finches with thicker beaks lived in areas where nuts were the main food source and finches with smaller beaks tended to live in areas where insects were the main food source. Adaptation are features that allow an organism to better survive in their environment. There has been many adaptations in animals but one of the best has been living in groups because animals can then “help each other find food, defend against predators and care for their young” (animalpanet, n.d.). Overproduction is when organisms produce more offspring than the environment can support. Darwin stated that all animals over produce since offspring can reach reproduction age and have offspring of their own. For example, “even a slow breeder

The definition of evolution is that species over time will change. They will start to adapt over time and become a new species. You see this happening throughout the world and over the course of our planets history. In this lab we will be testing different hypothesis and observing them to make conclusions if they can be justified or not. There are three different parts first is the Artificial and Natural selection, the second is the fossil record, third is comparative anatomy, biochemistry, embryology and the last is Biogeography.

Selective breeding has been used for many years to achieve the expression of desired traits in animals and plants. Similar to natural selection, humans have developed artificial selection where humans select the most desirable traits instead of the environment, this is what’s known as selective breeding. But in fact selective breeding does not select for the fittest phenotype like in natural selection it actually selects for the most desirable phenotypes which may cause harm to the individual.

This question ties with what was mentioned earlier that nature does not identify problems or feautures that make oranisms succesfful but instead natural selection responds to phenotypic variation in a population. Artificial selection doesnt have a direct natural correlation to the phenotypic variation but instead its based on what humans decide to consume/buy etc, doesnt necessarily have to be the best thing for them.

What is sexual selection? Sexual selection is the natural selection arising through preference by one sex for certain characteristics in individuals of the other sex. This means they are copulating with their other mate. Sexual selection can be dangerous in some cases depending on the rate and length of copulating. It can be so harmful to species that they may not be able to survive from it afterwards.

In most cases sexual difference are with in species may intersexual or intrasexual, but according to Darwin there are other ways sexual difference can occur in a species. Within the species sexual difference can based on the genetics and the their genotypes. The species sexual difference can be based on what traits are being expressed. Take for instance the sex chromosomes where males posses the XY chromosome and females posses the ZY chromosome. When evaluating the chromosome in mammals, males have a penis to ejaculate sperm and females have mammary glands to produce milk for the young.

They are very different methods of evolution, but they both achieve the same thing. Natural selection can be defined as the process by which the most fit to their environment produce more offspring and survive longer than others of their species. This is because of traits developed over many years that help an organism survive and reproduce, and are therefore passed onto the organism’s offspring. The main difference between artificial and natural selection lies within the way the traits are formed. With artificial, an organism is cultivated by an outside force, typically human, to develop a certain trait or gene. Artificial selection is similar to natural in the sense that, the reason the organism being manipulated really develops these traits

GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organism, which is the process of extracting genes from one species into another unrelated species. The process of transferring DNA from two distinct species is through genetic engineering. This displays the new traits of the first donor, which will be part of the genetic make up of the recipient organism. GMO is different from cross breeding or hybridization. Scientists developed GM plants by introducing genes that kill insects and protect crops against viruses. Many of these GM plants require less water so that they are able to grow in areas where water is scarce. The benefit of GMOs help crops grows and ripens faster so that farmers are able to grow more crops throughout the year. On the other hand, GMOs may be harmful to humans if they are not washed and cleaned properly before eating. GMOs include high risk of allergens, toxins, and other unknown side effects that are harmful.

24 plants of the species Arabidopsis thaliana were grown at two temperatures (20°C and 24°C) in Percival growth chambers, half at 20°C and half 24°C. The plants were randomized into a design that consisted of 12 flats in two growth chambers. The seedlings were then transferred to three inch pots on standard ProMix potting soil and bottom watered in their trays, two times per week to assure that the potting mix remained moist. Each group will have two different accessions; Natural Population A and Natural Population B. Natural Population A represents species extracted from Market Baden, Germany. Natural Population B represents species extracted from Merzhausen, Germany. Each accession will have six plants growing under 20°C and 24°C. All 24 plants were then looked at to measure the rosette size, the distance from the center stalk to the edge of the leaves. All measurements were reported in centimeters using a ruler. The plants were measured in two spans that were