AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -The mechanism that Darwin proposed for evolution is natural selection. Because resources are limited in nature, organisms with heritable traits that favor survival and reproduction will tend to leave more offspring than their peers, causing the traits to increase in frequency over generations.

Detailed explanation-2: -natural selection, process that results in the adaptation of an organism to its environment by means of selectively reproducing changes in its genotype, or genetic constitution. Charles Darwin: On the Origin of Species.

Detailed explanation-3: -Biological evolution refers to the cumulative changes that occur in a population over time. These changes are produced at the genetic level as organisms’ genes mutate and/or recombine in different ways during reproduction and are passed on to future generations.

Detailed explanation-4: -Evolution by natural selection occurs when the environment exerts a pressure on a population so that only some phenotypes survive and reproduce successfully. The stronger the selective pressure or the selection event the fewer individuals make it through the sieve of natural selection.

Detailed explanation-5: -More individuals are produced each generation that can survive. Phenotypic variation exists among individuals and the variation is heritable. Those individuals with heritable traits better suited to the environment will survive.