Selective Breeding Vs. Natural Selection

Genetic manipulation is a powerful tool that allows humans to selectively modify organisms. It provides the ability for humans to deliberately manipulate an organism 's’ genes in order to produce desirable traits. Genetic manipulation provides the ability for humans to decide which phenotypes to express, and which to eliminate. This typically starts with an individual organism, then goes onto eventually effect and entire species or breed.

Humans have been manipulating genetic transfer for over 10,000 years since our hunter- gatherer ancestors began to settle in one place and started farming and planting crops. Those humans observed and chose organisms from natural selection to select and breed organisms that showed characteristics desired by them and this began the process of selective breeding. Selective breeding favours recessive alleles that do not persist in wild populations. Selective breeding is a process of increasing the frequency of rare and recessive alleles so that they appear in homozygous form. This has the effect of eliminating the alleles for wild type from the population and the process of domestication has become irreversible. The domestic species has become dependent on humans for their survival. It is from these domestic species that humans have selected and breed favourable genetic traits for their benefit, be it higher yield in plant crops, sweeter tasting fruit, and more milk from dairy cows or ease of handling stock, selective breeding continues to be used today.

Artificial selection – a breeder that selects desired traits for a species and then breeds that species to have those traits.

Used since the dawn of human domestication of agriculture and livestock, the basic premise of artificial selection involved early farmers selectively saving seeds to breed plants with certain characteristics (Evolution of Corn, n.d.). In more recent times, the aim has shifted from simply creating sturdier, tastier fruits and vegetables to being able to create as much food possible in order to meet human demands. Shaped by our modern global economy’s demand of efficiency, rising industrialization over the 20th century, and growing population, agricultural practices of genetic manipulation of crops has grown immensely over the last century. Taking a step beyond selectively saving choice seeds, the discovery of “hybrid vigor” by genetic engineers lead to farmers being able to interbreed

The study or practice of attempting to ‘improve’ the human gene pool by encouraging the reproduction of people considered to have desirable traits and discouraging or preventing the reproduction of people considered to have undesirable traits; Eugenics.

What exactly does genetically modifying organisms mean? Society has been doing it for thousands of years. Selective breeding has been practiced to achieve things such as sweet corn, a rosebush, or a desirable dog breed (Genetically Modified Foods). Selective breeding, also called “traditional processing” by farmers, is when the desirable traits of

Selective breeding also could cause a decrease in biodiversity due to inbreeding. Inbreeding is the production of breeding between closely related individuals [2] and is used as it increases the chance of having favourable alleles and desirable phenotypes in the offspring. However, due to the individuals close genetic relations to one another this can cause many problems for the biodiversity of the population of dairy cows. Traits that may be disadvantageous now will be continuously chosen against during genomic selection and embryo transfer as the DNA is being scanned and checked for undesirable traits. However, this disadvantageous trait may become an advantageous trait in the future but it will be lost through the generations of selective breeding against it and are difficult to get back. As a result, this affects the evolution of the species as a whole because they develop and change to suit the desirable traits chosen which results in the undesirable traits being lost altogether.

Artificial selection could not only be good for the environment but can help people as well. From the article “Pros and Cons of Artificial Selection” they state, "Farmers who engage in artificial selection can create crops that are bigger, more plentiful, or more resilient to local pests. When more of a crop can be grown to completion on a regular basis, then this allows for more profits to be achieved.” If the farners where to cross-breed the species, it can create a new species, and could make one that hasn't been existed yet. The farmer could then sell this and make a great deal off of it. When related to a food chain, the artificial selection can live longer and grow to be more powerful. In the article they also explain, “Horses can become faster. Chickens begin laying eggs sooner or laying more eggs. Even cats or dogs can be bred through artificial selection for better companionship.” Artificial breeding will not only cause different types of breedings, but by doing so it can cause crops, animals, and even people to maybe even make there life easier. Lastly, another example of artificial breeding is that they can be used in every industry. There isn’t any plant that can’t get something out of the breeding process. If you pick animals that have the most beneficial traits, a life can be developed that is better suited to meet the needs of a changing

Wikipedia defines genetic modification as the “mutation, insertion or deletion of genes.” Consider that for over 14,000 years, humans have been using the practice of selective breeding by where only those organisms with desirable traits are used to breed the

Artificial selection is a technique of reproductive control by which man alters the genes of domestic or cultivated organisms. This technique is based on the inheritable characteristics of the species, increasing the frequency with which certain variations appear in the following generations; there is a directed evolution, in which human preferences determine the

Offspring that possess favorable traits are more capable of surviving into adulthood and thus reproducing. We know from genetics that there is an increased likelihood that their offspring would also possess that desirable trait. The population of individuals possessing the trait would increase as more individuals possessing the trait survived to reproductive years, and fewer without the trait did not. Natural selection can help prevent a species from going extinct if they were to face adverse conditions that

As scientists are experimenting with many methods of gene selection, the livestock industry are relying more on genetic selection. Genetic selection allow the farmers to produce the most fertile and efficient livestock. There are many impacts of genetic selection. Genetic selection allows the farmers to genetically modify the breed of the livestock to that mass production can occur to fulfill the need of consumers. With genetic selection the quantity and quality of meat and dairy production has been increased. I was not familiar with the technique of artificial insemination for reproduction biology until I took this class. I learned that artificial insemination is also a technique of genetic selection which allows the scientist to decide what kind of livestock they want. Also, to improve in fur quality of animal, the genetic selection is in used. With genetic selection, scientist can now improve the production rate of cattle. Genetic selection can also improve the physical characteristics of the livestock. To keep up with the world’s need in beef and dairy production genetic selections have a huge impact. Nowadays, the agriculture industries have been vastly improved because of the advancement in the genetic selections. Genetic selections also allow the farmer to modify animal more for either meat or dairy production. For example, Boer goat has been genetically modified to gain

Artificial selection and natural selection are different forms of the same practice that Charles Darwin observed. Artificial selection is when man controls the breeding for a specific trait just like genetic engineering where scientists alter and clone genes to produce a new trait in an organism. At the same time, natural selection is based on environmental conditions. Natural selection is Darwin’s famous theory stating evolutionary changes that occur through the production of variation in each generation. Organisms that are best suited to their environment

If these traits that it possesses that made it different were useful than that creature may reproduce more than normal. Of course in Darwin’s day DNA had not been discovered but it was known that traits were passed to offspring. Natural selection is when the organisms with good traits survive the trials of nature. Artificial selection is what breeders do, the cow that gives more milk, or the plant that produces larger fruit are selected to be reproduced. Encyclopedia Encarta defines natural selection as “the process by which environmental effects lead to varying degrees of reproductive success among individuals of a population of organisms with different hereditary characters, or traits. The characters that inhibit reproductive success decrease in frequency from generation to generation. The resulting increase in the proportion of reproductively successful individuals usually enhances the adaptation of the population to its environment”

Technology has been getting more and more advanced meaning that scientists have access to more advanced equipment and can conduct more complicated experiments. Scientists have found ways of enhancing and changing the genetic makeup of organisms when they are forming making it possible to customize and choose different traits and features about an organism’s physical appearance. This is very useful for farmers as they can breed their animals to have a certain trait or characteristic. For example, a farmer may want a muscly cow so with today’s studies it is possible to collect the semen from their muscliest bull and choose the strongest sperm then artificially inseminate an egg from their muscliest cow to produce a muscly calf. They can then repeat this procedure once the calf grows up and eventually over a couple of generations of this they will end up with a very muscly cow. This is called artificial