Artificial Selection Flashcards
What is artificial selection
Selective pressure exerted by humans on populations in order to improve or modify particular desirable traits.
Biotechnology
The use of technology and organisms to produce useful products
What is the key difference between natural and artificial selection
Natural = environment plays a role
→ environment conditions determine whether an individual can survive and reproduce.
Artificial = humans play the role
→ humans determine
Consequences that come from artificial breeding
English dogs are bred for flat faces → traits result in severe respiratory problems
Artificial selection and food crops
We breed food crops to increase their nutritional values and harvest yield & make them drought or pest resistant.
→ if a plant is bred too fast, they may not tolerate the poor soil conditions.
Monoculture
Extensive plantings of the same varieties of a species over a large land.
→ when a large area of land is used to plant the same type of crop, like only planting corn in a field.
Risks of monoculture
These organisms are so similar, if a new disease infests of the crops, most of the individual plants will be affected in the same way and the entire population could be killed or severely damaged.
Gene banks
In order to protect such things, gene banks have been created - Gene banks contain populations of early ancestors of modern plants.
→ by preserving these organisms their genetic diversity is available for introduction into modern plants if needs arise.
Similarties between natural and artificial selection.
- Variation in population
- trait must be heritable
- limits on population growth in environment
Major differences
- The major difference between the two is that in natural selection, the environment plays the role, in artificial selection, humans play the role and determine.
