Natural Selection and speciation

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What is natural selection?

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Natural selection is the process by which organisms better adapted to their environment tend to survive and produce more offspring.

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What is genetic drift?

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Genetic drift is a mechanism of evolution that refers to random changes in the frequency of alleles in a population.

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What is speciation?

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Speciation is the evolutionary process by which populations evolve to become distinct species.

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What is allopatric speciation?

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Allopatric speciation occurs when a population is divided by a geographical barrier, leading to the evolution of new species.

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What is sympatric speciation?

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Sympatric speciation occurs when new species evolve from a single ancestral species while inhabiting the same geographic region.

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What is convergent evolution?

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Convergent evolution is the process where organisms from different evolutionary backgrounds develop similar traits due to similar environmental pressures.

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What is divergent evolution?

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Divergent evolution is the process where two or more related species become more dissimilar over time, often due to different environments.

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What is the significance of an evolutionary tree?

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An evolutionary tree illustrates the relationships among various species, showing shared ancestry and evolutionary timelines.

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What is adaptive radiation?

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Adaptive radiation is the rapid evolution of diversely adapted species from a common ancestor in response to new environmental opportunities.

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What is the role of mutations in evolution?

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Mutations are changes in DNA that can lead to new traits, providing raw material for evolution and natural selection.