Artificial Selection

Artificial Selection
Nicolás Gómez
9ºB

Charles Darwin proposed the theory of evolution around the year 1860. This theory consisted on proving that in a biome where several species of animalscoexist, only the fittest of each specie will survive and procreate, passing the better genes to the next generation for the improvement of the specie. But as always, humans interfere with the regularcycle of nature, and started selecting what individual of each specimen would mate with the other, so they could create what they thought were better specimens.

This procedure, known to the modernworld as artificial selection, has been around before people even knew about the theory of evolution. It dates back even to the Roman Empire, where they would try to create a perfect racehorse. Alongthe years, we’ve always searched to “improve” species we utilize in different ways.

Artificial selection consists on choosing a male individual of a certain specie that presents desirable qualities,and mate it with a female individual with different qualities, and expect to get an offspring with several qualities that would make it (in the eyes of the humans) a better specimen. Although it mayseem like a harmless procedure, many times it comes along with new biological risks to the species that never used to be taken into consideration.

According to Darwin, the most modified specie byhumans is the dog. There are over 150 official dog breeds, but still all of them are of the canine family and descendants of the wolves and foxes. It all began when a Russian scientist successfullybreeded tamed foxes. He chose the ones that were less suspicious of humans, but as an unexpected result, as generations passed they developed different strange coat colors, floppy ears, curly tails and atendency to bark more. The same experiment was also tried with wolves and they received the same results, so after countless generations of artificial selection we have the different types of breeds...