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Bending nature to our will
Humans have been cherry-picking desirable traits in plants and animals for agricultural or ornamental reasons for millennia. This process, known as artificial selection, continues today. Environment Correspondent Audrey Tan highlights two examples from Singapore.
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Flowers and trees seen in a photo taken at Sun Plaza Park in Tampines, Singapore, on Sep 17, 2020.
PHOTO: ST FILE
Naturalist Charles Darwin theorised in his book On The Origin Of Species that organisms do change over time, inheriting certain traits - physical or behavioural - so they can adapt better to their ever-changing environments.
The changes allow the organism to survive, giving it the chance to pass on these beneficial traits to the next generation - a process now known as Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.
