Selective Breeding
• Selective Breeding: allowing only those organisms with
desired characteristics to reproduce.
– How could you use selective breeding to develop dogs
with more intelligence?
– Selective breeding takes advantage
of natural genetic variation (the
trait must already exist in the
population)
Selective Breeding
2 Methods of selective breeding
1. Hybridization: crossing dissimilar individuals together
to get the best of both organisms
Ex: Killer Bees – While attempting to create a bee that
produces more honey in tropical climates scientist bred a
European honey bee with a African honey bee.
2. Inbreeding: the continued breeding of individuals with
similar characteristic
Ex: Purebred Dog Breeds – dog breeds are created by
breeding individuals with similar characteristics to ensure
that the combination of traits will be passed on to the next
generation.
Selective Breeding
• In order for selective breeding
to work, you need a wide
variation of genetic traits.
– Explain why you cannot use
selective breeding to create
a monkey that glows in the
dark?
• How do new traits get introduced into a population?
– Induce mutations to develop new traits in a population
(Mutations are the ultimate source of new genetic traits)