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Natural Selection

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A process resulting in the evolution of organisms best adapted to their environment.

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Founder Effect

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Genetic drift that occurs when a few individuals become isolated from a larger population, forming a new population with a gene pool not reflective of the original.

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Stabilizing Selection

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Natural selection that favors the middle variation by removing the extremes.

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Artificial Selection

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Selective breeding of plants and animals to promote the occurrence of desirable traits in offspring.

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Derived Traits

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Newly evolved features, such as feathers, that do not appear in the fossils of common ancestors.

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Evolution

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The change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations.

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Genetic Drift

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Random changes in allele frequencies in a population, which can lead to significant changes over time.

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Directional Selection

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Natural selection that favors one extreme phenotype over the mean or other extreme phenotypes.

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Disruptive Selection

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Natural selection that favors extreme values for a trait over intermediate values.

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Ancestral Trait

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A trait that was present in a common ancestor of a group.