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Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant males and females will sexually reproduce and have offspring together.
Human intervention through artificial selection of animals with desirable characteristics further increased the differentiation among and uniformity within breeds. Examples of traits that have been deliberately selected by humans include growth rate, milk or egg production, coat color, meat quality, and age of maturity, among many others.
The first group proposed that animal domestication proceeded along a continuum of stages from anthropophily, commensalism, control in the wild, control of captive animals, extensive breeding, intensive breeding, and finally to pets in a slow, gradually intensifying relationship between humans and animals. [45] [55] The second group proposed ...
Unwittingly, humans have carried out evolution experiments for as long as they have been domesticating plants and animals. Selective breeding of plants and animals has led to varieties that differ dramatically from their original wild-type ancestors. Examples are the cabbage varieties, maize, or the large number of different dog breeds.
A major technological application of evolution is artificial selection, which is the intentional selection of certain traits in a population of organisms. Humans have used artificial selection for thousands of years in the domestication of plants and animals. [ 4 ]
The existence of limits in artificial selection experiments was discussed in the scientific literature in the 1940s or earlier. [1] The most obvious possible cause of reaching a limit (or plateau) when a population is under continued directional selection is that all of the additive-genetic variation (see additive genetic effects) related to that trait gets "used up" or fixed. [2]
Animal breeding is a branch of animal science that addresses the evaluation (using best linear unbiased prediction and other methods) of the genetic value (estimated breeding value, EBV) of livestock. Selecting for breeding animals with superior EBV in growth rate, egg, meat, milk, or wool production, or with other desirable traits has ...
For example, a group where altruism was universal would indeed outcompete a group where every creature acted in its own interest, so group selection might seem feasible; but a mixed group of altruists and non-altruists would be vulnerable to cheating by non-altruists within the group, so group selection would collapse.