3.3 Natural Selection and Adaptations

What is natural selection?

• A way scientists choose which animals to study

• Nature favoring living things with helpful features so they survive and have babies

• Animals choosing the best food to eat each day

• Plants growing faster when they get more water

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Which process increases genetic diversity by mixing features from two parents?

• Cloning

• Photosynthesis

• Sexual reproduction

• Hibernation

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Oysters that are either very light-colored or very dark-colored blend in with rocks, while medium-colored oysters do not. Which selection pattern does this describe?

• Stabilizing selection

• Directional selection

• Disruptive selection

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Which statement best describes natural selection?

• Animals and plants decide which traits to keep.

• Living things with helpful traits survive and have more babies, passing on those traits.

• All living things change at the same time every year.

• Traits only change when humans choose them.

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What do we call changes that help living things fit their specific homes?

• Mutations

• Populations

• Adaptations

• Directions

Which word means a group of the same kind of animals or plants living in the same area?

• Genetic diversity

• Population

• Community

• Ecosystem

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Genetic diversity in a group means the group has what?

• Only one trait for each feature

• Lots of different features within the group

• No traits at all

• Exactly the same appearance

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What are mutations?

• Careful choices made by animals

• Accidental changes in genetic material that can create new features

• Ways that animals learn new behaviors

• Weather changes in a habitat

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Which statement explains why genetic diversity is helpful?

• It makes every organism identical.

• It helps populations survive environmental changes.

• It stops natural selection from happening.

• It makes animals need less food.

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Which change could be caused by a mutation?

• A butterfly has different colors on its wings.

• A deer learns a new path through the woods.

• A bird builds a nest in a tree.

• A river freezes in winter.

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