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How does natural selection work?
Quick answer
Natural selection works because individuals with traits better suited to their environment tend to survive and reproduce more. Those helpful traits get passed on, so over many generations a population gradually adapts — the engine of evolution. Individuals vary in their inherited traits.
Step by step
- Individuals vary in their inherited traits.
- Some traits help survival and reproduction.
- Those individuals pass on more of their genes.
- Over generations, the population adapts.
People also ask
How does natural selection work?
Individuals with advantageous traits survive and reproduce more, passing those traits on, so populations adapt over time.
Is natural selection the same as evolution?
It's the main mechanism of evolution — evolution is the change over time that natural selection drives.
What is 'survival of the fittest'?
A phrase for how the best-adapted individuals to an environment tend to survive and reproduce.
Part of the guide: Nature & Earth: Living Things and Rocks →