Selective breeding

Selective breeding (also called artificial selection) is the process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively develop particular phenotypic traits (characteristics) by choosing which typically animal or plant males and females will sexually reproduce and have offspring together. Domesticated animals are known as breeds, normally bred by a professional breeder, while domesticated plants are known as varieties, cultigens, or cultivars. Two purebred animals of different breeds produce a crossbreed, and crossbred plants are called hybrids. Flowers, vegetables and fruit-trees may be bred by amateurs and commercial or non-commercial professionals: major crops are usually the provenance of the professionals.

There are two approaches or types of artificial selection, or selective breeding. First is the traditional "breeder's approach" in which the breeder or experimenter applies "a known amount of selection to a single phenotypic trait" by examining the chosen trait and choosing to breed only those that exhibit higher or "extreme values" of that trait. The second is called "controlled natural selection," which is essentially natural selection in a controlled environment. In this, the breeder does not choose which individuals being tested "survive or reproduce," as he or she could in the traditional approach. There are also "selection experiments," which is a third approach and these are conducted in order to determine the "strength of natural selection in the wild." However, this is more often an observational approach as opposed to an experimental approach.

In animal breeding, techniques such as inbreeding, linebreeding, and outcrossing are utilized. In plant breeding, similar methods are used. Charles Darwin discussed how selective breeding had been successful in producing change over time in his 1859 book, On the Origin of Species. Its first chapter discusses selective breeding and domestication of such animals as pigeons, cats, cattle, and dogs. Darwin used artificial selection as a springboard to introduce and support the theory of natural selection.

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