Artificial selection (Agriculture Glossary)

Artificial selection : Also called selective breeding.

The process by which humans use animal breeding and plant breeding to selectively control the development of particular phenotypic traits in organisms by choosing which individual organisms will reproduce and create offspring. Artificial selection involves the deliberate exploitation of knowledge about genetics and reproductive biology in the hope of producing desirable characteristics in descendant organisms. It is widely practiced in agriculture, but it may also be unintentional and may produce unintended results.