Artificial Selection and Natural Selection
Artificial selection is the evolution mechanism in which humans intervene in the reproduction technique of plants or animals, with the aim of getting favored traits. On the other hand, natural choice involves the mechanism in which animals or plants have the features which best suit the survival in the survival for the fittest environment, and the plants/animals can skip the traits to the next generation.
Synthetic Selection
It is, therefore, clear that in synthetic selection, the agents for selection are human beings who choose the traits to reproduce and the ones they do no longer want to breed. There are no processes or species in the ecosystem in this mechanism. Also, synthetic selection is goal-oriented as far as the reproduction outcome is concerned, unlike the natural selection which involves an automatic selection by the natural habitat (Darwin, Burckhardt, Evans, & Pearn, 2013).
Agricultural Example: Turkeys
A good example is the case of turkeys. In agriculture, turkeys that are fat and have large breasts are the most desired traits, and it is only such type of turkeys that are allowed by farmers to breed. This selection is artificial since the goal of the farmers is to have the fat turkeys for flesh and eliminate those that are sleek. In exceptional selection, the male turkeys are breasted to a point in which they are too largely breasted to an extent in which they cannot mate with the females, and the females are artificially inseminated to breed the desired breed.
Wild Population
However, in wild population, it is entirely a different case. Wild turkeys who are sleek can run faster than the ones who are fat. Besides, they intelligent enough to avoid those animals who feed on them. Therefore, they can survive in that environment and pass their genes to the next generation. The fat ones, on the other hand, would just be eaten by the predators since they cannot run fast. Hence they cannot pass on their genes.
Reference:
arwin, C., Burckhardt, F., Evans, S., & Pearn, A. (2013). Evolution (1st Ed.). Cambridge [u.a.]: Cambridge Univ. Press.
