What is one advantage of selective breeding?

Selective breeding is a process utilized to enhance specific desirable traits in a population by choosing parent organisms that exhibit those traits. By doing so, breeders can emphasize and propagate these characteristics in future generations. This technique is widely used in agriculture and animal husbandry to develop crops and livestock with improved yields, resistance to diseases, or other favorable traits such as size, flavor, or growth rate.

The emphasis on specific traits enables breeders to steer the genetic direction of a population, allowing for the enhancement of qualities that benefit both the organisms involved and human utilization. This focus on selected traits leads to greater biodiversity in the traits of future generations rather than a random mixing of genetic material. Thus, the ability to control and enhance specific characteristics is a primary advantage of selective breeding.