What are the factors that influence the process of evolution?
1 Answer
Jan 3, 2017
First and foremost is mutation , then there is natural selection . Other than these gene flow, genetic drift, sexual recombination are some of important factors which influence evolution of living organisms.
Explanation:
- Mutation is source of variation, and all individuals of a population vary among themselves because of presence of different variations in each of them.
- Variations could be helpful in survival of an organism. Then there are higher chances of those variations being inherited by the progeny.
- Favourable variations are thus selected by nature through generations, which eventually help in evolution of a well adapted organism.
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- Living organisms benefit from crossing over and random fertilisation , which help in producing unique combinations of different variations.
- Generally a population remains naturally divided in subpopulations/demes. Each subpopulation may have some variations which is unique to them. When gene flow between subpopulations stop (exchange of variations no longer take place between subpopulations), then one subpopulation may evolve into one species. (Organisms must interbreed to remain in a single species)
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- Genetic drift is another important factor that randomly changes allele frequency and hence affect evolutionary potential of a group of organisms.
