Which principle highlights the survival advantage of organisms that are better suited to their environments?

Natural selection is the principle that explains how certain traits become more common in a population over time due to the survival and reproductive advantages they confer to organisms better suited for their specific environments. This process is driven by the differential survival and reproduction of individuals with advantageous traits that allow them to adapt to their surroundings more effectively.

Organisms that have traits enhancing their ability to find food, escape predators, reproduce, or cope with environmental conditions will have higher survival rates and more opportunities to pass these beneficial traits on to the next generation. Over time, these advantageous traits become prevalent within the population. This principle is fundamental to the theory of evolution, demonstrating how species evolve and adapt to changing environments.

In contrast, parasitism involves one organism benefiting at the expense of another, mutation refers to changes in the genetic material that can introduce new traits but doesn’t inherently confer advantages for survival, and symbiosis describes interactions between species that can be beneficial, neutral, or harmful but doesn’t specifically address the survival of individuals in relation to environmental adaptation.