Which process describes organisms that are better adapted passing on their genes to strengthen the gene pool?

• A. Genetic Drift
• B. Natural Selection
• C. Gene Flow
• D. Mutation

Answer: (B)

Natural selection is the process where individuals with heritable traits that give a survival or reproductive advantage are more likely to survive and produce offspring. Over generations, those advantageous alleles become more common, strengthening the gene pool to better fit the environment. In other words, the traits that improve fitness are preferentially passed on, so the population becomes better adapted over time.

For example, if darker coloration provides better camouflage in a polluted environment, individuals with that trait tend to survive and reproduce more, pushing the darker allele into the population.

Other processes can change gene frequencies too, but they don’t rise directly from differential reproductive success driven by adaptation: genetic drift is random, gene flow mixes genes between populations, and mutation introduces new alleles but doesn’t necessarily improve fitness by itself.