In: Biology
Which of the following statements is a misconception about evolution of populations?
Without genetic variation, evolution would not be possible. |
Microevolution is a change in the genetic structure of a population over time. |
Most heritable variation involves quantitative characters. |
Natural selection acts on individuals. |
For a population to evolve, individual members of the population must also evolve. |
The misconception is: For a population to evolve, individual members of the population must also evolve.
Evolution takes place at the population level, there some characters are preferred in organisms and some are not, and that is decided over lots of generations. So it's in the future generations that evolution makes itself visible, and not at individual level in the current generation. So it is a misconception that every individual member of the population must evolve for large scale evolution to occur.