How does natural disaster facilitate DIVERGENT evolution? give an example and explain!!

Question

PLEASE give full explanations on this question! Also, is divergent evolution a type of natural selection?

Answer 1

How does natural disaster facilitate DIVERGENT evolution?

Natural disasters like earthquakes, flooding, and hurricanes can facilitate divergent evolution by creating isolated and separate environments for populations of similar animals and plants.

For example, imagine a group of very similar deer living together in Area A. Then imagine that severe flooding occurs so that the center of Area A becomes covered in water. Imagine that this newly created body of water divides Area A into two different new Areas, Area B and Area C. Imagine that Area B is forest-like and Area C is prairie-like. Imagine that half of the deer live in Area B now and half in Area C.

The deer living in Area B would be exposed to a different environment than those in Area C and consequently they would develop different traits over time.

Divergent evolution occurs when closely related populations of the same species develop different traits.

Therefore, in this imagined scenario, the closely related deer who once lived together in Area A would become separated and develop different traits as a result of the natural disaster.