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Biology vocabulary · Evolution and Classification

Natural selection

Meaning in biology, with examples

/ˌnætʃərəl sɪˈlekʃən/nounCore term

In biology, natural selection means: The process by which individuals with traits better suited to their environment survive and reproduce more, so those traits become more common over generations.

In Turkish: doğal seçilim, doğal seleksiyon

How it is used

The main mechanism of evolution described by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. Natural selection acts on, favors or selects against a trait. Compare artificial selection, in which humans choose which plants or animals breed.

Example sentences

  1. Natural selection favored darker moths when soot covered the tree trunks.

  2. Students often confuse natural selection with the idea that animals change because they need to.

Common collocations

  • process of natural selection
  • favored by natural selection
  • selective pressure
  • artificial selection
  • evolutionThe change in the inherited traits of populations over many generations. It explains how all living species descend from earlier forms of life.
  • adaptationA feature that helps an organism survive and reproduce in its environment, such as a camel's wide feet; also the evolutionary process that produces such features.
  • traitA characteristic of an organism, such as eye color, flower shape or blood type. Some traits are inherited through genes, while others are shaped by the environment.
  • populationAll the members of one species that live in the same area at the same time and can breed with each other.

More terms: Evolution and Classification

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