3.2 Natural Selection

   Natural selection enhances adaptation for a specific organism since their traits aided in their survival and their reproductive success. When an individual then passes those trait onto further generations, making them heritable, thats where the theory of evolution can be observed and supported. I think that an important aspect of this process is that the traits are heritable. If beneficial traits only appear in one individual and those traits aren't passed on, then evolution of a species can not take place, in terms of that variant. 

    Another important take away of this topic is that the presences of natural selection does not necessarily always have to lead to evolutionary changes in a species. For example, often people are attracted to other people who are physically fit and give off a muscular or toned appearance. (This is not obviously everyone's preference but this is just an example!) Because being physically fit suggests that the person takes good care of themselves and that they care about their health, other people are attracted to that and might find them as a suitable partner that they potentially want to pair up with. Now let's say that the couple where one person is average to a little overweight and the other person who is fit have a child. While the fitness of one of the parents was favorable in choosing a partner, that does not mean that the child is going to grow up naturally super muscular and or that they will be the automatic best at whatever physical task they compete in. Obtaining a high muscle/low fat percentage takes individual work and is not completely heritable. That child has an equal chance as most other children to either choose to take good care of themselves physically, or choose to focus on other attributes as most any other child.

    An example of how selection might happen in absence of natural selection is through artificial selection performed by humans. A common example of artificial selection is how farmers breed their livestock for human resources and consumption. This is done by choosing preferable characteristics of individuals and cross breeding them to increase the amount of offspring with the desired traits.