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Evolution is any change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. The evolutionary process gives rise to diversity at every level of organization, including molecules, cells, organisms and species.

Evolutionary biologists identify multiple natural causes for the changes observed over time in heritable traits within populations, including - but not limited to - mutation, genetic drift, and natural selection. Evolution depends on heritable variation. Heritability is a measure of how reliably a trait is transmitted or correlated from parent to offspring. Charles Darwin was among the first to formulate a theory of evolution by means of natural selection. Natural selection is formulated on the consequence of three premises of biological populations, including 1) more offspring are produced than can possibly survive, 2) traits vary among individuals, leading to differential rates of survival and reproduction, and 3) traits are heritable. Natural selection can lead to adaptive traits that are seemingly fitted for the functional roles they perform. The fitness of an adaptive trait is a measure of its survival and reproduction rates into future generations.

Evolutionary biology is a complex science as individuals interact with each other and in dynamic environments. For example, populations can become geographically separated into two or more subpopulations and then evolve in divergent directions. This can lead to speciation. The repeated process of speciation is the process by which all known life forms have evolved from a common ancestor.

Since Darwin, evolutionary biology has been expanded, refined and rigorously tested. Evolution is both theory and fact. Throughout its history as a discipline it has maintained an extended synthesis, the means to test, and the most comprehensive explanation to date for the existence of all biological phenomena. Evolutionary biology is also an interdisciplinary science with applied and theoretical implications for natural resource management, humanities, medicine, psychology, computation, and philosophy in general.

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Evolution is any change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Observed changes in heritable traits over time within populations can be traced to different evolutionary processes such as mutation, genetic drift and natural selection, with natural selection being the principal mechanism of evolutionary change. For evolution by natural selection to occur, there has to be heritable variations that are transmitted from parent to offspring. Offspring born with heritable variations that are adaptive are more likely to survive and reproduce, thereby having their traits appear in future generations. Over time, natural selection can result in adaptive traits becoming seemingly fitted for the functional roles they perform. The fitness of an adaptive trait is a measure of its survival and reproduction rates into future generations. Given that the evolutionary processes occurs at every level of organization, they have given rise to a large diverse groups of molecules, cells, organisms and species.

Since Darwin, evolutionary biology has revealed that the repeated process of speciation has given rise to many different species are actually descendents of a common ancestor. Speciation can occur when populations become geographically separated into two or more subpopulations and then evolve in divergent directions. The science of evolutionary biology has continued to be expanded, refined and rigorously tested. Throughout its history as a discipline it has maintained an extended synthesis, the means to test, and the most comprehensive explanation to date for the existence of all biological phenomena. From carefully controlled laboratory experiments to the fossil record, evolution is now considered to be both theory and fact. Since evolutionary biology is an interdisciplinary science, it has applied and theoretical implications for natural resource management, humanities, medicine, social sciences, computation, and philosophy in general.