Natural Seclection Paper

The process of natural selection can occur in a variety of species and can be considered the most important process for the environment to create the fittest organisms to produce offspring. If a species is unable to adapt to the changes of the environment around them, the species is likely to become extinct. A species that is able to adapt to their surroundings will be able to pass along their genes through reproduction.

In natural selection there can be different developments that occur that change the original genetic make-up of a species. Some of these changes can be altered through the mechanisms of evolution. In this paper, the team will examine the different mechanism of evolution, describe how natural selection results in biodiversity. The team will also explain why biodiversity is important to continue evolution and finally examine the source of genetics variation such as mutations and sexual recombination.

Mechanisms of Evolution

Many mechanisms exist that can lead to the process of evolution and evolutionary change. Natural selection, defined as the success in reproduction of different phenotypes resulting from the interaction of organisms with their environment (Campbell, 2007), is considered one of the most important of these mechanisms. Natural selection takes place when an individual adapts to a certain environment through variations arising by mutation and genetic recombination. The essence of natural selection is that certain traits in an individual are favored more than others and are passed on to the next generation.

Genetic drift is another mechanism of evolution. Genetic drift can be described as a random change in a small gene pool due to sampling errors in propagation of alleles or chance (Campbell, 2007). Genetic drift can occur in two ways; bottleneck effect and founder effect. The bottleneck effect occurs when something occurs such as a natural disaster which produces a smaller surviving population with a different genetic makeup than...