The idea of Natural selection was an idea developed by English naturalist Charles Darwin after a five-

year voyage to study plants, animals, and fossils in South America on islands in the Pacific. He bought
this idea to the attention of the world in 1859. IT was proposed that Natural selection is the process
through which populations of living organisms adapt and change to survive in their environment by
selectively reproducing changes in their genotype or genetic constitution. Natural selection plays one of
the most important roles when it comes to evolution. Natural selection can be called special because out
of all the mechanisms of evolution, it’s the only one that can consistently make populations adapted, or
better suited for the environment, over time. Organisms with heritable (genetically determined) features
that help them survive and reproduce in a particular environment tend to leave more offspring than their
peers. If this continues over generations, the heritable features that aid. The diversity of animals on Earth
would have never gotten as far as it has without it. Natural selection acts on an organism’s phenotype or
observable features.
In this experiment, natural selection was mimicked by a simulation. Organisms in a population are
naturally variable, meaning they are all different in some ways. This variation means that some organisms
have traits better suited for the environment than others. With these adaptive traits, organisms are more
likely to survive and reproduce. The traits of an organism will affect the population because it will
increase or decrease based on the number of predators there are for that specific organism. Based on this,
animals will begin adapting to find new ways to increase their survival rate.
Survival of the fittest is a term made famous in the fifth edition of On the Origin of Species written by
British naturalist Charles Darwin. This suggested that organisms best adjusted to their environment are
the most successful in surviving and reproducing.
Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection entailed three crucial elements: variation, reproductions,
and, hereditability. Variations in the physical features of an organism that tends to benefit
In natural selection, genetic mutations are beneficial for an organism’s survival.
This experiment can test whether specific traits will increase or decrease an organism’s survival rate
within the populations using different factors such as food, climate, and predators. For example, let’s
imagine a population of brown and white rabbits, whose coat color is determined by dominant brown (B)
and recessive white (b) alleles of a single gene. If a predator such as a wolf can see white rabbits
(genotype bb) more easily than brown rabbits (BB and Bb) against the backdrop of a desert, brown
rabbits are more likely than white rabbits to survive wolf predation. Because more brown than white
rabbits will survive to reproduce, the next generation will contain a higher frequency of B alleles.
The phenotypes and genotypes favored by natural selection aren’t necessarily just the ones that survive
best. Instead, they’re the ones with the highest overall fitness and can also depend on whether the allele is
dominant or recessive. Fitness is the measure of how well organisms survive and reproduce. Survival is
one important component of fitness. To leave any off offspring at all in the next generation, an organism
has to reach reproductive age. For instance, in the situation where the rabbits are in the desert, brown
rabbits had higher fitness than white rabbits because a larger fraction of brown rabbits than white rabbits
survived to reproduce.
The Arctic Hare will be used as a reference for the white rabbits, while the Desert cottontail will be used
for the brown rabbits. The artic Hare lives in harsh environments and is adapted to icy biomes such as the
North American Tundra. Thanks to its shorts airs and limbs, tiny nose, and thick coat of fur it is able to
survive these icy habitats. Artic hares are fast and can moves at speed of up to 40 miles an hour because
of the tall hind legs they have. In winter, they sport a white coat of fur while in spring the colour may
change to blue-gray. This is used as the first line of defense against predators because the white fur
provides excellent camouflage in the landscape of ice and snow while the blue-gray helps to blend in
with rocks and vegetation. Food can be scarce in the Artic, but the hares survive by eating woody
plants, mosses and linches. Even though one of the factors was limited food it did not affect the rate at
which the artic hare survives. The desert cottontail would not be able to survive in the icy biome due to
the fact that their brown fur does not blend into the environment making them an easy target for
predators.

Artic hares have a very keen sense of smell that allows them to find food beneath snaow and detect
predators before they strike. The paws of the Arctic hare are padded with the fur to
help the animal spread weight while walking on snow and provide insulation
from icy surfaces. The broad paw also provides a better grip on slippery
surfaces, especially when running from predators. Although arctic hares are
larger than rabbits, they have a low surface area to volume ratio compared to
their relatives in the warmer climates. Their stockier bodies retain fat and
prevent heat from escaping. About 20% of their body consists of fat.
The reason some white rabbits were able to survive in the desert was
because they change their colours during spring and can blend camouflage
with the use of vegetation.
Rabbits have the ability to change fur colour depending on climate. Which is why some white rabbits
were able to survive in the desert.

We will examine natural selection at the level of population genetics,

in terms of allele, genotype, and phenotype frequencies.