Final answer:
Selective breeding, or artificial selection, involves humans choosing organisms with desirable traits to breed and pass those traits onto future generations. This intentional selection has been used in agriculture and animal domestication and differs from natural selection which occurs without human intervention.
Step-by-step explanation:
Selective breeding, also known as artificial selection, is a traditional method used by humans to choose desirable traits in organisms, which are then passed on to new generations. The process involves:
- Choosing organisms with desirable traits to breed together, thereby increasing the likelihood those traits will be passed on to offspring.
- Using knowledge from experience or scientific understanding to select which traits are to be amplified in the bred population.
- Understanding that this is different from natural selection, where the environment plays a key role in determining which traits become more common over time without human intervention.
Artificial selection has been used to improve agricultural crops and livestock, as well as to create new breeds of domestic animals such as dogs. Charles Darwin recognized this process as an important clue to the natural evolution of species.