Note that this change was not due to pollution making the moths darker. The dark variety had always existed in small numbers, but only had a selective advantage when the selection pressure changed.
This is because natural selection acts to increase the prevalence of highly advantageous alleles, over time generating common resistance alleles of especially strong effect. For example ...
A classic example of natural selection at work is the origin of giraffes’ long necks. The ancestors of modern giraffes were animals similar to deer or antelope, with necks of ordinary length.
In natural selection, genetic mutations that are beneficial to an individual’s survival are passed on through reproduction. This results in a new generation of organisms that are more likely to ...
The proportion of well-adapted organisms in a population can increase over the generations by the process of evolution by natural selection.
For example, populations living in different ecological environments (e.g., desert versus forest habitats) might undergo divergent and adaptive evolutionary change via divergent natural selection.
They weren't at all certain that natural populations contained enough genetic variation for natural selection to create ... processes to explain them. For example, where others saw the modern ...
Q: Tell us about this "dangerous idea" of Darwin's. A: I think Darwin's idea of natural selection is the best idea anybody ever had, ahead of Newton, ahead of Einstein. What it does is it promises ...
The Bajau subsist by gathering shellfish on the sea floor In a striking example of natural selection, the Bajau people of South-East Asia have developed bigger spleens for diving, a study shows.