Selective breeding

Question 1

What is natural selection?

Answer 1

Genetic variants for phenotypes that result in the animal being able to survive a changing environment and more likely to be passed on, and that trait becomes more common in the species.
This is known as ‘adaptation’.

Question 2

What is selective breeding?

Answer 2

To breed animals together based on their desirable characteristics for particular purposes. This non-random mating leads to an overall change in the genotype of the population over many generations.

Question 3

Positive assortive mating.

Answer 3

Mating animals with similar phenotypes or features attempts to increase the occurrence of these traits in the offspring.

Question 4

Negative assortive mating.

Answer 4

Mating animals with opposite phenotypes or features can lead to more variety between offspring.