PSYCH 1XX3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Heritability, Natural Selection, Phenotype

• School: McMaster University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH 1XX3
• Professor: Christopher Teeter

Document Summary

Adaptations: biological traits that help an individual survive and reproduce in its habitat; they"re for something; perform specific functions. Ex. eyes, raccoons paws, bat"s echolocation system; traits aren"t simply morphological, they can be perceptual process and behaviours. Activation of relavent genes in response to relevant environmental stimuli. Natural selection: differential survival and reproduction of organisms as a result of the heritable differences b/w them: individual differences, differential reproduction (some will have more offspring than, heritability others) Selective transmission: red fish get eaten more often than blue coloured fish, thus, population of blue fish will survive selective transmission b/c these characteristics are best adapted for survival when compared with the red fish. Stabilizing selection: evolution occurs in populations in the wild when the environment changes; in this case, evolution favours traits that are. In this way, rapid change in environment brought a change in morphology of finches (in one generations); selection against any sort of departure from the species-typical adaptive design;