How Natural Selection Works
Science · Ecosystems & Habitats · conceptual
Explain natural selection as the mechanism of evolution: heritable variation + competition for resources + differential survival and reproduction = change in allele frequency over generations
What mastery looks like
- Describes the four conditions required for natural selection to operate (variation, heritability, competition, selection)
- Applies the concept to a specific example (e.g. antibiotic resistance in bacteria, peppered moth)
- Explains why individuals with advantageous traits leave more offspring
- Distinguishes natural selection from evolution (selection is the mechanism; evolution is the result over many generations)
Check your understanding
If How Natural Selection Works heard about bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics, could they explain how that happened using natural selection — without the bacteria ‘choosing’ to change?
Prerequisites
Required first
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