What is an artificial selection?
Artificial selection is a scientific term used to describe plant and animals breeding for desired features and not necessarily those that would allow offspring better survive in the wild. It is also known as selective breeding and unnatural selection. The process can be considered as the opposite of natural selection.
The artificial selection process is relatively easy. A specific plant or animal is selected because it has a specific hereditary genetic property that the breeder wants. The plant or animal is then bred with another species with a similar feature, resulting in offspring with higher potential to display specific properties. This cycle can be repeated for offspring until the specific properties are achieved at the desired level. Some features are so rare that they can only exist in one or two family lines. If the feature is recessive, two members of the same line (relatives) may have to be kept together to see a visible feature (expressed). In animals this may result in genetican defects and other serious problems.
The results of artificial selection can be easily seen. Domestication cycle of dogs (canines) kept by their owners to emphasize less aggressive features, continued for thousands of years and resulted in hundreds of different breeds that look almost nothing like their ancestors of gray wolves. Milk cattle behaves in the hope that it will produce more milk, but some lines now suffer from increased infections and fertility problems. Persian cats that are kept for extremely flat faces often develop respiratory problems and may have problems with food. All these features that are kept do not help the animals survive in the wild, but make them more desirable for their owners.
Charles Darwin used the term artificial selection twice in his book, about the origin of the species . In the first legacy he wrote about complex and beautiful things that people believe that people can create during the process. In the second ODKAZA used this term to describe the reasons for differences in animal breeds in countries with different levels of development. Darwin, however, clearly did not define this term in his book.