Ace the Florida Biology EOC 2025 – Unleash Your Inner Science Whiz!

The process that describes the evolution of a population to become better adapted to their local environment over many generations is natural selection. This concept, first articulated by Charles Darwin, explains how certain traits become more or less common in a population based on their contributions to individual survival and reproduction in a given environment.

In natural selection, individuals with advantageous traits are more likely to survive and reproduce, passing those traits to the next generation. Over time, these adaptive traits become more prevalent within the population, leading to gradual changes in the species as they become better suited to their environment. This process is a fundamental mechanism of evolution, highlighting how populations can change to fit their ecological niches.

In contrast, genetic mutation refers to random changes in an organism's DNA that can introduce new traits, but it is not specifically about adaptation over generations. Artificial selection involves human intervention in breeding for specific traits, which does not necessarily relate to the natural adaptation of populations in the wild. Gene flow refers to the transfer of genetic material between populations, which can introduce new traits but does not inherently drive adaptation to local environments.