What evolutionary mechanism predicts an organism's survival based on phenotype?

Natural selection is the evolutionary mechanism that predicts an organism's survival based on phenotype. This process occurs when individuals with certain traits that are advantageous for their environment are more likely to survive, reproduce, and pass those traits on to the next generation. Phenotypes, which are the observable characteristics influenced by genetics and the environment, can affect an organism's ability to obtain resources, evade predators, or cope with environmental conditions.

Through natural selection, beneficial phenotypic variations become more common in a population over time, as these traits enhance the fitness of individuals who possess them. This concept is central to evolutionary biology and explains how populations evolve in response to their surroundings. Traits that improve survival and reproductive success tend to increase in frequency, leading to gradual changes in the population's characteristics.

Genetic drift relates to random changes in allele frequencies in a population, especially in small populations, and does not necessarily involve advantageous traits. Species variation refers to differences among species rather than within a species, while environmental adaptation focuses on how organisms adjust to their environment, which is part of the natural selection process but does not encompass the entire mechanism itself.