Hows does evolution take place? I understand that its an accumulation of changes to adapt to an environment, but how does it change generation to generation? Is the set of traits that will be passed down to an offspring predetermined or does it change depending on how my environment is? Its seems too fascinating that my environment may change the set of dna that is passed down, or is that not the case?
In: Biology
Evolution is defined as changes in how often alleles appear in the gene pool. There are five ways this happens. Natural selection, non-random mating, gene flow, genetic drift, and mutations. When a population is reproductively isolated, that is they are no longer interbreeding with other communities of their species, these five ways a gene pool can change will cause their gene pool to drift away from other members of their species. When the accumulated differences in these genes is great enough, the reproductive systems of these species will no longer work together to create viable off spring. This is what we call a “speciation event”, where a new species has derived from the original species.
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