What is Artificial Selection?

Artificial selection, also called "selective breeding”, is where humans select for
desirable traits in agricultural products or animals, rather than leaving the
species to evolve and change gradually without human interference, like in
natural selection.

 Who give the Theory of Artificial Selection?

English naturalist Charles Darwin developed the idea of natural selection after a five-
year voyage to study plants, animals, and fossils in South America and on islands in
the Pacific. In 1859, he brought the idea of natural selection to the attention of the
world in his best-selling book, On the Origin of Species.

 Theory of Charles Darwin on Artificial Selection.

Artificial selection is the identification by humans of desirable traits in plants

and animals, and the steps taken to enhance and perpetuate those traits in
future generations
Example of Artificial Selection

 Selective breeding (or artificial selection) is the process by

which humans choose individuals with desired traits to reproduce, with
the aim of producing offspring with the desired traits also
 Most selective breeding is done with the aim of increasing the yield of a
sellable product
 It is not done with the organism's survival in mind, and unlike natural
selection, it can lead to organisms that are poorly adapted to their
environments
 Unless the genetic mechanism behind a trait is fully understood, is highly
likely that other traits could also be accidentally enhanced
 Some examples of selective breeding in agriculture and
livestock include:
o Disease-resistance in wheat and rice varieties
o Hybridization in maize
o Milk yield in cattle

Disease-resistance in wheat & rice

 Wheat plants have been selectively bred for hundreds of years as a crop
 Wheat crops can be badly affected by fungal diseases: Fusarium is a
fungus that causes “head blight” in wheat plants
 Fungal diseases are highly problematic for farmers as they destroy the
wheat plant and reduce crop yield
 By using selective breeding to introduce a fungus-resistant allele from
another species of wheat, the hybrid wheat plants are not susceptible to
infection, and so yield increases
o Introducing the allele into the crop population can take many
generations and collaboration with researchers and plant
breeders
 Rice is another crop that has been subject to large amounts of selective
breeding
 Rice plants are prone to different bacterial and fungal diseases
o Examples include “bacterial blight” and “rice blast” caused by
the Magnaporthe fungus
 These diseases all reduce the yield of the crop as they damage infected
plants
 Scientists are currently working hard to create varieties of rice plants
that are resistant to several bacterial and fungal diseases
Inbreeding & hybridization in maize

 Maize (also known as corn) is a staple crop in many countries around the
world; it is grown to feed both livestock and people
 In the past, maize plants have been heavily inbred (bred with plants with
similar genotypes to their own)
 This has resulted in small and weaker maize plants that have less vigour
 This is inbreeding depression which:
o Increases the chance of harmful recessive alleles combining in an
individual and being expressed in the phenotype
o Increases homozygosity in individuals (paired alleles at loci are
identical)
o Leads to decreased growth and survivability
 A farmer can prevent inbreeding depression by outbreeding
o This involves breeding individuals that are not closely related
o Outbreeding produces taller and healthier maize plants
o It decreases the chance of harmful recessive alleles combining in
an individual and being expressed in the phenotype
o Increases heterozygosity (paired alleles at loci are different)
o Leads to increased growth and survivability (known as hybrid
vigour)
o Crops of these plants have a greater yield
 Uniformity is important when growing a crop:
o If outbreeding is carried out completely randomly, it can
produce too much variation between plants within one field
o A farmer needs the plants to ripen at the same time and be of a
similar height; the more variation there is, the less likely this is
 In order to achieve heterozygosity and uniformity, farmers buy sets of
homozygous seeds from specialised companies and cross them to
produce an F1 generation
 Different hybrids of maize are constantly being created and tested
for desirables traits such as: resistance to pests / disease, higher yields
and good growth in poor conditions

Improving milk yield in cattle

 Milk is a global food source, rich in calcium and protein (essential for
growth)
 Over many years and generations farmers have selected female cows
that have the highest milk yield and crossed them with male bulls
related to high yield females
 Over time this selective breeding has resulted in cows with greater milk
yields, which has been of great economical benefit to farmers
 The selective breeding of cows for increased milk yield is a good example
of how artificial selection (controlled by humans) does not take into
account an organism's survival
 Selective breeding usually focuses on only one, or a handful of,
characteristics, often to the extreme. Little thought is given to other
traits important to an organism's health
o In cows it has been observed that selectively bred individuals are
much more prone to ailments such as mastitis (inflammation of
the udder), milk fever and lameness compared to those that were
allowed to breed at random

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