Which statement accurately describes natural selection? a. it ensures that 100 percent of beneficial traits will pass on to the next generation. b. it ensures that all individuals with harmful traits are unable to reproduce. c. individuals with beneficial traits are more likely to successfully reproduce than those with harmful traits. d. individuals are all equally likely to successfully reproduce, but the genome will mutate to erase harmful traits.

The correct answer would be the option C.

Natural selection refers to the natural phenomenon by which organisms better adapted or suited to a particular environment tend to survive and reproduce more as compared to the organisms which lack such adaptations.

For example, green colored beetles inhabiting green leaves tend to survive and reproduce more as compared to the yellow beetles inhabiting in a similar habitat.

genetic variation can be caused by mutation (which can create entirely new alleles in a population), random mating, random fertilization, and recombination between homologous chromosomes during meiosis (which reshuffles alleles within an organism's offspring).