Abstract: Natural selection is a major, although not the only, scientific theory to explain how the diversity of life with so many species and large variations in characters came to exist. The concept of natural selection was first formulated by Charles Darwin (1809–82), and it is still considered to be of paramount importance in evolutionary biology. Natural selection operates whenever individuals differ in heritable traits that result in differences in their relative contribution of offspring to the next generation. Traits that benefit an organism to maximize its biologicla fitness under the prevailing environmental conditions will spread in a populationa nd thus function as adaptations. A special case of natural selection is sexual selection, referring to selection on any characters that influence an organism's access to mating partners. Besides resulting in morphological, physiological, or behavioral traits that allow individuals to succeed in competitive interactions, natural selection has also produced highly cooperative behaviors as teh phenotypically altruistic behavior of nonoffspring care, which nevertheless is adaptive under specific environomental conditions.
Publication Year: 2001
Publication Date: 2001-01-01
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 1
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