Final answer:
The student's question pertains to natural selection and inheritance, explaining how successful traits are passed down through generations, thus allowing those families to dominate the population.
Step-by-step explanation:
If offspring tend to inherit their parent's traits, the family that expresses the more successful traits will come, generation after generation, to dominate the population, while all other families with less successful traits will go extinct.
This concept is a key component of natural selection, where certain traits that provide a survival or reproductive advantage become more common in a population over time. Individuals with such advantageous traits are more likely to survive to reproductive age and have more offspring. As a result, these traits are better represented in subsequent generations, according to the principles of natural selection and inheritance. The mechanism of genetic inheritance ensures that offspring receive genes from their parents, and these genes determine an organism's characteristics or traits.
Additionally, when phenotypic variations occur that better suit an organism to its environment, individuals with these traits have a higher chance of survival and reproduction. Over time, these traits become more frequent within the population, especially if the environment remains consistent, thus leading to the well-adapted traits becoming more prevalent while less favorable traits may eventually disappear.