Ohio Assessment for Educators (OAE) Integrated Science (024) Practice Exam

Alfred Wallace independently proposed the theory of natural selection alongside Charles Darwin. In fact, it was Wallace's work that prompted Darwin to publish his own findings on the subject. Wallace conducted extensive observations of wildlife in the Malay Archipelago and noticed patterns in how species adapted to their environments. He formulated a concept similar to Darwin's, explaining that individuals with advantageous traits were more likely to survive and reproduce, thereby passing those traits to future generations.

This concept of natural selection is foundational in understanding evolution, as it describes the process by which favorable traits become more common in a population due to the benefits they provide in terms of survival and reproduction. Wallace's contributions highlighted the importance of environmental factors in shaping biological diversity, making his proposal crucial to the development of evolutionary theory.