Natural selection

Individuals with a phenotype that gives an advantage are more likely to survive and reproduce, so the allele becomes more common in the population over many generations.

A process in which individuals with characteristics better suited to the environment are more likely to survive and reproduce, passing on advantageous alleles.

The process acting on variation produced by mutation, which drives evolution as a change in the inherited characteristics of a population over time.

Requires variation, inheritance of that variation, and differential survival and reproduction, so some variants reproduce more successfully.

Acting on variants, it increases the differences between populations, favouring different alleles in different environments.

The environment selects existing variants, so beneficial alleles become more frequent over many generations.