Patterns of

natural
selection
Natural Selection - is the differential survival and
reproduction of individuals due to differences in
phenotype.
Key points:
Charles Darwin was a British
naturalist who proposed the
theory of biological evolution
by natural selection.
Darwin defined evolution as
"descent with modification,"
the idea that species change
over time, give rise to new
species, and share a common
limited in nature, organisms with
heritable traits that favor
survival and reproduction will
tend to leave more offspring than
their peers, causing the traits to
increase in frequency over
generations.
Natural selection causes
populations to become adapted,
or increasingly well-suited, to
their environments over time.
natural selection. This
mechanism was elegant
and logical, and it
explained how
populations could evolve
(undergo descent with
modification) in such a
way that they became
natural selection was
based on several key
observations:
● Traits are often heritable.
In living organisms, many
characteristics are
inherited, or passed from
parent to offspring.
(Darwin knew this was the
case, even though he did
not know that traits were
inherited via genes.)
● More offspring are
produced than can
survive. Organisms are
capable of producing
more offspring than
their environments
can support. Thus,
there is competition
for limited resources in
each generation.
● Offspring vary in their
heritable traits. The
offspring in any
generation will be
slightly different from
one another in their
traits (color, size,
shape, etc.), and many
of these features will
be heritable.
Based on these simple
observations, Darwin concluded the
● In a population, some individuals will have inherited traits
following:
that help them survive and reproduce (given the conditions
of the environment, such as the predators and food sources
present). The individuals with the helpful traits will leave
more offspring in the next generation than their peers,
since the traits make them more effective at surviving and
reproducing.
● Because the helpful traits
are heritable, and
because organisms with
these traits leave more
offspring, the traits will
tend to become more
common (present in a
larger fraction of the
population) in the next
generation.
● Over generations, the
population will become
adapted to its
environment (as
individuals with traits
helpful in that
environment have
consistently greater
reproductive success
than their peers).
how natural selection can work
To make natural selection more
concrete, let's consider a simplified,
hypothetical example. In this example,
a group of mice with heritable variation
in fur color (black vs. tan) has just
moved into a new area where the rocks
are black. This environment features
hawks, which like to eat mice and can
see the tan ones more easily than the
black ones against the black rock.
Because the hawks can see and
catch the tan mice more easily, a
relatively large fraction of the tan
mice are eaten, while a much smaller
fraction of the black mice are eaten.
If we look at the ratio of black mice
to tan mice in the surviving ("not-
eaten") group, it will be higher than
in the starting population.
Fur color is a heritable trait (one
that can be passed from parent
to child). So, the increased
fraction of black mice in the
surviving group means an
increased fraction of black baby
mice in the next generation.
After several generations of
selection, the population might
be made up almost entirely of
black mice. This change in the
heritable features of the
population is an example of
evolution
Key points about natural
selection:
● Natural selection depends on
the environment
Natural selection doesn't favor traits
that are somehow inherently
superior. Instead, it favors traits that
are beneficial (that is, help an
organism survive and reproduce
more effectively than its peers) in a
specific environment. Traits that are
helpful in one environment might
actually be harmful in another.
● Natural selection acts on
existing heritable variation
Natural selection needs some
starting material, and that starting
material is heritable variation. For
natural selection to act on a feature,
there must already be variation
(differences among individuals) for
that feature. Also, the differences
have to be heritable, determined by
the organisms' genes.
● Heritable variation comes from random mutations

The original source of the new gene variants that produce

new heritable traits, such as fur colors, is random mutation
(changes in DNA sequence). Random mutations that are
passed on to offspring typically occur in the germline, or
sperm and egg cell lineage, of organisms. Sexual
reproduction "mixes and matches" gene variants to make
more variation.
 Types of
Natural
Selection
Directional Selection, Stabilizing Selection and
Disruptive Selection
directional
selection
The directional selection theory says that an extreme
phenotype (characteristics or traits) is favored over other
phenotypes and this causes the allele frequency (how often
the variant of a gene shows up in a population) to shift over
time in favor of the extreme phenotype. In other words, if a
particular trait is favorable, it will be expressed at the most
beneficial frequency in the population.
An example of directional selection
is giraffe neck lengths. The
environment created a selection
pressure which favored giraffes
with longer necks who could reach
more food in the trees. At the same
time, there was selection pressure
against giraffes with shorter necks.
Both long and short necks are
extreme phenotypes, but over
time, the long neck phenotype
dominated due to selection
pressure, i.e., this trait in giraffes
shifted toward the direction of long
necks.
Stabilizing
Selection
Stabilizing selection can be thought of as “middle-of-the-road”
selection, meaning a non-extreme trait is favored instead of one of
the two extreme traits. An example of this is plant height. In a
population of plants, those that are short may not get enough
sunlight, but those that are tall may be subjected to wind damage.
This results in an increase in the number of medium-height plants
and a decrease in very tall and very short plants. Because most
traits do not change drastically over time, stabilizing selection is
considered to be the most common mechanism for natural selection.
Other examples of stabilizing selection are the birth weight of
humans and the number of eggs a bird lays (clutch size). The
birth weight of human babies stays within a certain range
because babies that have a very low birth weight have less
chance of survival and those with a very high birth weight can
cause complications during delivery which threaten the life of the
mother and the child. The clutch size of bird species is limited to
a certain number of eggs. There must be enough eggs so that
the clutch can survive predation and/or disease, but not so large
that there are too many chicks for the parent(s) to feed.
Disruptive
Selection
This type of natural selection is bimodal and favors both extreme
traits in a population. For example, in a population of plants, there
are some pollinators that visit the tallest plants, a different species
of pollinator visits medium-height plants and a third species of
pollinator that prefers the shortest plants. If the pollinator that
prefers medium-height plants is removed, natural selection would
select against medium-height plants and the overall plant
population would move toward having only tall and short plants,
the two extreme phenotypes.
A more classic example of
disruptive selection is the beak
size of finches on the
Galapagos Islands that was
studied by Darwin. Because the
majority of seeds found on
some of the islands were either
large or small, finches with
large and small beaks (no
medium-sized beaks) were
favored on those islands.
How Evolution
Works
Microevolution involves how the allele frequencies
change over time within a population.
 Organisms undergo
microevolution because of
four different processes,
which include mutation,
selection, gene flow, and
genetic drift. Each is unique
and causes microevolution
(change in allele frequency)
within its own way. To help
you better understand; let's
Mutation
Let us talk about digesting milk. It may be surprising to
learn that the ability to digest milk (or more specifically
lactose, the sugar in milk) came about because of a
mutation. Mutations are changes to your DNA.
Interestingly, many people think of mutations only as being
negative. And while many mutations are negative, there
are some mutations that offer a favorable advantage to the
organisms they occur in.
 In the case of lactose tolerance, the mutation occurred roughly
10,000 years ago in conjunction with the development of
agriculture and animal domestication. The mutation represented
a new allele within the human population. The mutation provided
its owner an advantage with respect to survival. Being able to
obtain more nutrients from milk meant a greater likelihood of
survival, and subsequently, the mutation was passed along to
future generations. Over time the mutation spread throughout
the population. As it did, the percentage of people with the
mutated allele increased. That is microevolution via mutation.
Therefore, if you can drink and digest milk it is because you
possess the mutated allele. (or the enzyme called lactase)
Selection
The next process that drives microevolution is selection.
Selection occurs when individuals with favorable alleles
survive and reproduce, while those with less desirable alleles
do not. Selection can be subcategorized as natural, artificial,
or sexual. However, in each case the pattern of desirable
alleles passing to future generations is evident. For the
purposes of this lesson, we needn't delve into the specifics
on these various forms of selection.
Peppered moths are a classic example of
selection driving microevolution. Initially
the population of peppered moths is
primarily light colored. Now suppose the
moth's environment changed and became
darker, like in a shady forest, and dark
colored moths were more cryptic and
tougher for predators to find. This means
that darker moths would survive and
reproduce. Lighter moths would be eaten
by predators and not reproduce as easily,
due to predation. As a result, the darker
allele would become more frequent in
future generations. This is microevolution
because of selection.
Gene also called migration — is any

Flow movement of individuals, and/or the

genetic material they carry, from one
population to another. Gene flow
includes lots of different kinds of
events, such as pollen being blown to
a new destination or people moving
to new cities or countries. If gene
versions are carried to a population
where those gene versions previously
did not exist, gene flow can be a very
important source of genetic variation.
In the graphic, the gene version for
brown coloration moves from one
population to another.
Genetic
drift variation in the relative
frequency of different
genotypes in a small
population, owing to the
chance disappearance of
particular genes as
individuals die or do not
reproduce.