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Artificial selection
Long before Darwin and Wallace, farmers and breeders
were using the idea of selection to cause major changes in the
features of their plants and animals over the course of decades.
Farmers and breeders allowed only the plants and animals with desirable
characteristics to reproduce, causing the evolution of
farm stock. This process is called artificial selection because people (instead of nature) select which organisms
get to reproduce.
As shown below, farmers have cultivated numerous popular crops
from the wild mustard, by artificially selecting for certain attributes.
These common vegetables were cultivated from forms of wild mustard. This is evolution through artificial selection. |
