A. A stable ecological niche leads to absence of selection pressure, which in turn causes species to remain unmodified or in stasis.
B. An unstable ecological niche leads to various selection pressures, which in turn causes the species to remain in a stage of stasis.
C. A stable ecological niche leads to various selection pressures, which in turn causes species to remain unmodified or in stasis.
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Why Do You Think Species Remain In A Stage Of Stasis?
Posted on January 20, 2011.
To correctly answer this topic, one must first qualify “ecological niche” and “selection pressure”.
What is an ‘ecological niche’?? Is that a scientific fact??
Also, what is ‘selection pressure’ and is this a scientific fact???
Also, in relation to the ‘selection pressure’ who or what is being pressured to make a selection????
Does the term ‘selection’ infer there is some kind of intelligent choice there???
If so, what kind of intelligence??
I’d go with C. If there was an absence of selection pressure (as per option A) then the species would be expected to change over time due to genetic drift unless it consistently maintained a large population size and random mating. Furthermore a stable niche would be unlikely to lead to an absence of selection pressure. It should exert selection pressure on the population to become as adapted as constraints allow to the niche. Once the population reaches that optimum, then selection pressures exerted by those constraints would tend to keep the population largely the same.