3.1.14 (HL)—Artificial selection and resilience

Artificial selection deliberately increases chosen traits, but a narrow breeding pool can reduce resilience to future stress.

Repeatedly selecting similar parents may raise yield while losing alleles. Genetically uniform crops or livestock can share susceptibility to one pathogen, pest or climate shock.

A high-yield crop line performs well until a new fungus infects every genetically similar plant.

Maintain diverse varieties and breeding populations while selecting for useful traits.

Artificial selection is not automatically bad; evaluate yield gains, genetic breadth and risk together.