Patterns of

Natural
Selection
 Charles
Darwin’s 5 years
Voyage (1831-
1836)
• Invited to explore the world by
FitzRoy of HMS Beagle (Ship) as their
Naturalist
• Fossil of seashells in the
mountainous regions
• Huge extinct bones from bigger
animals
 Galapagos Island

• Collection of certain bird specimens

• Slightly different morphological

characteristics compare to mainland
(Republic of Ecuador)
Darwin’s Finch
 How does the island’s
geography influence the
bird’s variation?
On the Origin
of Species
(1859)
 Theory of
Evolution by
Natural Selection
SURVIVAL OF

THE FITTEST
Evolutionary Adaptation
Darwin’s Theory of
Evolution by Natural
Selection
 Overpopulation

• Number of offspring's is usually greater than the

available resources necessary for the organisms
to survive
 Struggle for
Existence

• Every Organism must struggle to survive

 Presence of Variation

• There is Variation within the

species
 Survival of the Fittest

• Some Variations allow members of a species

to survive and reproduce better than others
 Variations can be
transmitted

• Organisms that survive and reproduce

pass their traits to other offspring's and
the helpful traits gradually appear in
growing populations
Patterns of Selection:
Altering Evolutionary
Trajectory
 Directional
Selection

• mode of natural selection in which an extreme

phenotype is favored over other phenotypes, causing
the allele frequency to shift over time in the direction
of that phenotype
 Stabilizing Selection

• descriptive term for what happens to an

individual trait when the extremes of the
trait are selected against
Disruptive
Selections

• also called diversifying selection, describes changes in

population genetics in which extreme values for a trait are
favored over intermediate values