AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Natural selection can lead to speciation, where one species gives rise to a new and distinctly different species. It is one of the processes that drives evolution and helps to explain the diversity of life on Earth.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Earth’s biodiversity is the result of 4 billion years of evolution-change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Up until about 600 million years ago, life consisted of single-celled organisms.

Detailed explanation-3: -Natural selection may arise from differences in survival, in fertility, in rate of development, in mating success, or in any other aspect of the life cycle. All such differences result in natural selection to the extent that they affect the number of progeny an organism leaves.

Detailed explanation-4: -Natural selection is a mechanism of evolution. Organisms that are more adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and pass on the genes that aided their success. This process causes species to change and diverge over time.

Detailed explanation-5: -Again, natural selection itself does not create new variation, it merely influences the proportion of existing variants. Most forms of selection reduce the amount of genetic variation within populations, which may be counteracted by the continual emergence of new variation via undirected mutation and recombination.