Genetic Drift
Posts
It gets complicated
Phenotypic plasticity is the organisms ability to change any of their phenotypic traits ( such as color or height)in order to adapt to the change in their environment. A scientist could determine weather or not a trait is plastic by changing different conditions in the environment or moving the organism to a completely different environment and observing how that organism may change. As an example, lets say we have a special species of giraffes, these giraffes are well suited for reaching grass and leafs on short bushes, but lets say for some reason the environment around the giraffes changes and grass and small bushes become scarce. In order for the giraffes to survive their necks elongate just enough so that they are able to reach the leafs on a tree. This would make the length of the giraffes neck a plastic trait.
Genotypes and Phenotypes
Natural selection is based entirely on the external environment of the organism and the more favorable and compatible an organism is with its environment the more natural selection would favor said organism. It does not matter to natural selection if the phenotype is a random mutation or not as long as the phenotype is favored by its environment and is a heritable trait, that certain phenotype will become more and more common in each passing generation until it is the dominant phenotype in the population. This domination is the bases to evolutionary change. a little more simplified explanation:
