How does environmental change influence the process of evolution?

Environmental change plays a crucial role in the process of evolution, primarily through driving evolutionary adaptations via natural selection. When environmental conditions shift—whether through climate change, habitat destruction, or changes in available resources—species must adapt to survive. Natural selection favors individuals with traits that enhance their fitness in the altered environment, meaning those individuals are more likely to reproduce and pass those advantageous traits onto the next generation. Over time, this leads to a population that is better suited to the new environmental conditions, ultimately contributing to the process of evolution.

In contrast, while geographic isolation can lead to speciation (creating new species), it is not the primary mechanism by which environmental change influences evolution. Environmental changes typically focus more on the selection pressures imposed on existing populations. Increasing genetic variation can occur through various mechanisms, such as mutation or gene flow, but it does not directly result from environmental change itself; rather, it serves as a substrate for natural selection to act upon. Lastly, the idea that environmental change eliminates all existing species is an extreme and generally inaccurate view, as most changes result in varying survival levels among species rather than complete extinction.