What principle explains that organisms best suited to their environment have enhanced survival and reproduction chances?

The principle that organisms best suited to their environment have enhanced survival and reproduction chances is known as natural selection. This concept, introduced by Charles Darwin, describes the process where individuals within a species that possess advantageous traits are more likely to survive and reproduce than those without those traits. Over time, these beneficial characteristics become more common in the population because those individuals carry them forward to the next generation.

Natural selection operates through various mechanisms, such as competition for resources, predation, and environmental pressures that favor certain traits over others. As a result, natural selection drives evolutionary change and adaptation, leading species to become better fitted to their ecological niches. This is fundamentally different from the other concepts mentioned. Environmental adaptation refers to the process of modifications in organisms to survive in particular environments, but it does not inherently involve the selective nature of survival and reproduction. Genetic drift, on the other hand, involves random changes in allele frequencies in a population, which can occur regardless of whether traits are advantageous. The phrase "survival of the fittest" is often used interchangeably with natural selection, yet it misrepresents the nuanced process of selection by implying a focus solely on strength rather than overall suitability to the environment based on various advantageous traits. Thus, natural selection is the most