AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Natural selection requires variation between individuals. Mutations and sexual reproduction increase genetic variation in a population. Natural selection occurs when environmental pressures favor certain traits that are passed on to offspring.

Detailed explanation-2: -Natural selection is the process through which populations of living organisms adapt and change. Individuals in a population are naturally variable, meaning that they are all different in some ways. This variation means that some individuals have traits better suited to the environment than others.

Detailed explanation-3: -Genetic variation can be caused by mutation (which can create entirely new alleles in a population), random mating, random fertilization, and recombination between homologous chromosomes during meiosis (which reshuffles alleles within an organism’s offspring).

Detailed explanation-4: -Gene flow is the movement of genes into or out of a population. Such movement may be due to migration of individual organisms that reproduce in their new populations, or to the movement of gametes (e.g., as a consequence of pollen transfer among plants).

Detailed explanation-5: -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.