Same Mechanism, Different Selector

You'll learnhow artificial and natural selection share one mechanism, differing only in the selective agent.

A breeder keeps seed from the biggest-eared plants; a bird eats the beetles it can see. Both run the same three-step machine — heritable variation, something deciding who reproduces, shifting allele frequencies — and only the identity of that something changes. Eleven short steps; press Next for each one.

AP BIOLOGY · 11 STEPS · 6 QUICK CHECKS · THE BREEDER IS THE SELECTIVE AGENT · SELECTION SPENDS VARIATION · v6

one machine · the breeder is the agent · variation gets spent

Before you start

What you're looking at

Two benches side by side — wild teosinte with a tiny 2 cm ear on the left, modern maize with a long ear on the right.

The question

Is a farmer choosing which seed to keep doing the same thing as a predator eating prey?

Step 1 / 11