What process involves selecting and breeding individuals to develop desirable traits?

• A. Hybridization
• B. Selective Breeding
• C. Cloning
• D. Mutation

Answer: (B)

Selective breeding, or artificial selection, is the deliberate choosing of individuals with desirable traits to mate, with the goal of passing those traits to future generations. Humans act as the selecting force, and over generations the trait becomes more common in the population, yielding crops or animals with improved characteristics. This differs from cloning (making exact genetic copies), mutation (random changes that introduce new traits), and hybridization (crossing different varieties or species to mix traits, not necessarily through a multi-generational selection process). So, selecting and breeding individuals to develop desirable traits fits selective breeding.