Question

A characteristic which is influenced by genes and passed from parents to offspring is called heritable. Over many generations heritable adaptive traits become more common in a population. This process is called evolution by natural selection. Evolution by natural selection leads to adaptation within a population. The term evolution by natural selection does not refer to individuals changing, only to changes in the frequency of adaptive characteristics in the population as a whole. For example, for the mice that lived on tan sand, none of the mice had a change in the color of their fur; rather, due to natural selection, tan fur was more common for the pups than for the mother mice. In summary, a heritable characteristic that helps an animal or plant to have more offspring which survive to reproduce and will tend to become more common in a population as a result of evolution by natural selection.
a. Explain why a heritable characteristic which helps an animal to live longer will generally tend to become more common in subsequent generations as a result of evolution by natural selection.
b. Suppose an unusual heritable characteristic helped animals to live longer but made them sterile so they could not have any offspring. Explain why this heritable characteristic would not become more common in subsequent generations as a result of evolution by natural selection.

Answer 1

Explanation:

a. Some novel traits become fixed within a population, as they confer advantageous adaptations to an individual within their environment. These adaptations let these individuals live longer than their counterparts, and mate to produce more offspring over time, who also possess these traits.

b. For natural selection to act on a trait, it must confer a particularly beneficial advantage, and it should also be passed on to various offspring capable of surviving and reproducing at a higher rate. Without the ability to reproduce, natural selection cannot occur and is not influenced by an individual's fitness.

Natural selection leads to evolutionary change when individuals with certain characteristics have a greater survival or reproductive rate than other individuals in a population and pass on these inheritable genetic characteristics to their offspring.

Further Explanation:

Genetic variation has an important impact  on small populations. There, mutations add up over time in a population, modifying the distribution of alleles or various forms of a gene. Natural selection may lead to loss of diversity in a population through genetic drift; one trait's allelic frequency increases significantly while others become less prevalent. Usually these differences exist because of occurrences of mutation and recombination.

Spontaneous changes within the genome occurring during the cycle of cell division are called mutations. These are defects of copies of the DNA produced within the cell; mutations may range from small modifications called single nucleotide polymorphisms to large-scale deletions and multi-gene additions.

Such mutations create variants which, within a group, become permanent, resulting in the creation of different, genetically distinct populations called species.  Mutations occur over time in a population, changing the distribution of alleles or various forms of a gene-this is called genetic drift.

Learn more about mutations at brainly.com/question/4602376

Learn more about DNA and RNA at brainly.com/question/2416343?source=aid8411316

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