how does natural selection produce adaptations in a species?

Answer 1

Natural selection is a very slow process. This is natures way to help certain species survive by adapting to their environment. This may take thousands of years. Take for instance an arctic fox. They were once the same color as a red fox or a grey fox, and still are during the summer months, but during the winter they have the ability to change the coat color to white. This ability to change fur color is species diversity, a survival tool for adaptation and a must for the survival of the animal. This ability to change color is passed along to the next generation of foxes and the cycle will continue till there is no longer an arctic region.

Answer 2

Strictly speacking, natural selection doesn't "produce" adaptations.

The characteristics (adaptations) have to be present in at least a few members of a species population (or emerge via mutation). Those members of the species who have a favorable characteristic will have a better chance of surviving and reprodcing--thus passing on the characteristic, compared to those who don't have the characteristic. So, over time, more and more members of the species have the characteristic--and so the species as a whole is better adapted to its environment.

Just remember this is a statistical probability--a particular individual may not survive, even with the characteristic (just bad luck) and some who don't have it will survive.

In short, "natural selection" is our label for the sorting process of sorting that goes on in species populations that tends to spread pro-survival traits and weed out contra-survival ones.

Answer 3

Natural selection does not "produce" anything. Processes such as mutation produce changes (or there are characteristics inherent in particular organisms that give no advantage or disadvantages). What natural selection does is act on variations. If one set of genetically programmed variations gives organisms that have it an advantage those organisms are more likely to survive, thrive and breed. The particular characteristic is passed on to the offspring, which are themselves more likely to breed until the characteristic exists throughout that species (or a new species with that characteristics comes into existence.)

Answer 4

Any specie that is unable to adapt to enviromental ,physiological and biological changes will extinguish itself. Only species that are adaptable to all changes will still be in the natural selection process.

Answer 5

The adaptations are a response to environmental challenges which become manifest in various ways. The classic example is the set of Darwin finches on the Galapagos Islands. Each finch has adapted a specialized bill to enable it to successfully obtain food in it's particular ecosystem.

Answer 6

The body begins to adapt to what it needs to eat, the environment it's in, the temperature, think about it.



If you leave a lot of lizards in an extremely cold climate, and enough of them survive to breed and thrive, they will eventually grow hair to adapt to the blistering cold. The body knows what it needs to function, and through breeding, the species will eventually be born with a full body of hair.

Answer 7

i will use the coolest previous peppered moths for example: version--there are adjustments in the species from one person to the subsequent. (some moths are gray/white, some are black.) Inheritablity--the version is genetic and can hence be surpassed directly to offspring. generating offspring will develop the possibility of seeing the comparable trait in the subsequent era. (Moths inherit their shade from genes they have been given from their mothers and dads.) Differential survivability--the trait impacts the moth's skill to proceed to exist long sufficient to offer those offspring, or promptly impacts the moth's skill to offer offspring. (A white moth would be much less seen to predators on a white historic past (and hence extra in all danger to proceed to exist long sufficient to have offspring), jointly as a black moth would be much less seen to predators on a black historic past.) a pair hundred years in the past, peppered moths have been white--on uncommon events you will possibly see a black one. They stay and feed on timber that are white, so white moths mixture in and black moths are extra seen and extra in all danger to be eaten in the past they have offspring, so a peppered moth became into white many of the time. Then a manufacturing facility became into geared up that placed black soot everywhere in the white timber. this transformation in enviroment made it much less in all danger that white moths might stay, and extra in all danger that black moths might stay. ultimately, over many generations, the survivablity benefit became into great sufficient for black moths that black became the easy shade for those moths, while it was white. The species replaced over the years as adjustments in the ecosystem replaced which trait might have the suitable survivability. If the trait has no longer something to do with survivabilty (would not teach you the thank you to stay, charm to a mate, or produce extra offspring) you will no longer see one version favored over yet another.