selection pressure
Fitness-shaping influence
Selection pressure is the environmental force that favors certain traits over others in a population, driving evolutionary change.
Predators create selection pressure for speed or camouflage; drought creates selection pressure for water retention.
The concept explains why traits that improve survival and reproduction become more common over generations: Antibiotic overuse creates selection pressure for resistant bacteria.
- survival of the fittestAdaptive advantage perpetuates species
- adaptationFitting to new conditions
- fitnessGood physical shape
- survivalRemaining alive against odds
- mutationPermanent DNA alteration
evolution · competition · arms race · predation · apex predator · environment · trait · gene · bottleneck · drift · phenotype · extinction · endangered species · breeding · resistance · red queen · camouflage · mimicry
- evolutionevolution, mutation, adaptation, speciation, fitness
- population geneticsallele, gene pool, genetic drift, genetic variation, genotype
- optimization algorithmsswarm intelligence, hill climbing, convergence, heuristic, nature-inspired
- tumor evolutionclonal expansion, phylogeny
- geneticsDNA, allele, genotype, genes, gene
- DarwinCharles Darwin, evolution, HMS Beagle, Galapagos, Darwin's finches
selection, pressure, select, selected, selecting, selective, selectively, selectivity, selector