Selective breeding

Humans can use variation in selective breeding. They choose parents with desirable characteristics, then breed from offspring that also have those characteristics. Repeating this over generations can increase food production, for example by favouring useful characteristics in crops or livestock.

Selective breeding uses this variation. Humans choose the individuals with a desired characteristic and breed them, rather than leaving the choice of breeding partners to chance.

In selective breeding, or artificial selection, humans choose parents with desirable inherited characteristics. Unlike natural selection, the selecting agent is a person rather than the environment. The process does not directly rewrite an organism's DNA: it changes which existing alleles are most likely to be passed to the next generation.

In selective breeding, people choose plants or animals with a useful characteristic and breed them together. They then choose offspring that show the characteristic most strongly and breed those offspring. Repeating this over many generations can produce a crop variety or animal breed in which the characteristic is common.