Artificial Selection

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Artificial Selection

What is the difference between natural and artificial?

Learners can:

• describe how artificial selection is used to promote certain traits within organisms

• differentiate the processes of natural selection and artificial selection

Vocabulary: artificial selection

Prerequisite Vocabulary: evolution, natural selection, offspring

Overview

Charles Darwin was a pigeon breeder.
He would carefully select which pigeons would mate. This allowed them to select desired features, such as beak shapes or color patterns.

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Pouter Pigeons

​Page 44
Things are not in the correct order, no clue why!

Artificial Selection

Artificial selection is the process that breeds plants and animals with characteristics humans prefer.

Multiple Choice

How does artificial selection differ from natural selection?

• 
  Artificial selection is when people pick and breed animals or plants for specific traits. Natural selection is when nature decides which traits are helpful.

• 
  Artificial selection makes certain traits disappear, while natural selection treats all traits the same way.

• 
  Artificial selection changes how a whole group of animals or plants look, while natural selection only affects individual animals or plants.

• 
  Artificial selection only happens in labs, while natural selection only happens in the wild.

Dog breeds are the result of artificial selection, as humans selectively bred dogs with specific traits and characteristics, leading to distinct breeds tailored for various purposes and appearances

Corn is the result of artificial selection, where humans selectively bred wild grasses over thousands of years to develop a crop with larger, more nutritious kernels.

​Horse breeds have been artificially selected to serve many different purposes. Race horses are chosen for speed, while these Shire Horses have been bred to exhibit size and strength.

Characteristics of Artificial Selection

Artificial selection features three main characteristics that set it apart from natural selection. These characteristics are:

• human intervention

• controlled selective pressure

• rapid trait change

In artificial selection, humans apply selective pressures to make preferred traits more common in an organism's population. The traits that humans prefer might not be the same traits that would help the organism survive and reproduce in the wild. In this way, the changes produced through artificial selection can differ greatly from the common traits of an organism in nature.

1. ​Identify Desired Traits

2. Select Parent Organisms

3. Crossbreeding or Mating

4. Culling

5. Continued Crossbreeding or Mating

​Steps for Artificial Selection

Categorize

Options (6)

Traits selected by humans

Does not always enhance survival

Traits inherited from parents

Occurs naturally

Increases chances of survival

Results in changes in genetic traits

Organize these options into the right categories

Natural Selection

Artificial Selection

Both Natural and Artificial Selection