Question

How does the environment select organisms?

Answer 1

The environment selects organisms through natural selection by favoring traits that are better adapted to limited resources and changing conditions. Environmental pressures lead to directional selection, which can shift a population's traits over time, as seen in the peppered moth example. Both the environment and the organisms that inhabit it can influence each other, leading to a dynamic ecological relationship.

Step-by-step explanation:

The environment selects organisms through a process known as natural selection, which is a key component of the theory of evolution. In an ecosystem, organisms compete for limited resources such as food, sunlight, and minerals. This competition, along with physical and geographic factors like climate, rainfall, and topography, determines which organisms thrive and which do not. Evolutionary fitness is how well an organism can survive and reproduce in its environment.

Environmental changes can lead to directional selection, which favors phenotypes that are better suited to the new conditions. A famous example is the peppered moth evolution during the Industrial Revolution. Light-colored moths were predominantly favored before, but as pollution darkened the trees, the darker moths had a survival advantage. This environmental pressure changed the genetic variance within the population, leading to a higher frequency of the better-suited, darker moths.

Traits favored by natural selection depend on current environmental conditions, which are not static. For instance, plant species in a moist climate may initially favor large leaves to absorb more sunlight, but if the climate becomes drier, natural selection may begin to favor plants with smaller leaves that are better at conserving water.

Dr. Luke Harmon's study on three-spined stickleback indicated that the evolution of species within an ecosystem can have direct effects on the ecosystem environment itself. Thus, environmental conditions and the organisms that inhabit it are in a dynamic relationship where both can influence the other.

Answer 2

The process in which the environment selects organisms that will survive is called natural selection. It starts with overproduction; when an organism produces more offpsrings than can survive. The second is variation. Because there are so many offsprings, there will be variations. The third step is selection. When the actual "selection" occurs. If the variation is helpful to survive, then it gets passed down. This is the fourth step: adaptation when it is passed down to offsprings for generations.