Natural selection contributes to which important biological concept?

Natural selection is a fundamental mechanism driving evolution, which explains how species change over time in response to environmental pressures. It operates on the variation within a population, where individuals with advantageous traits are more likely to survive and reproduce. This process leads to the gradual adaptation of populations to their environments, resulting in evolutionary changes.

The concept of evolution encompasses the diversity of life on Earth and involves the processes by which organisms develop new traits and species over generations. Natural selection is one of the key processes through which evolution occurs, making it crucial for understanding how and why life forms have evolved as they have. Other concepts, such as genetic drift, fossilization, and symbiosis, are related to evolutionary biology but do not directly stem from the processes of natural selection in the same fundamental way.