Which evolutionary process can lead to two or more species sharing similar traits due to similar environmental challenges?

Convergent evolution is the process by which unrelated or distantly related organisms evolve similar traits or adaptations due to facing comparable environmental challenges or selecting pressures. This phenomenon highlights how similar environmental factors can lead different species to develop analogous features, even if they do not share a common ancestor.

For instance, the wings of bats and birds serve the same function and are structurally similar, yet they evolved independently in response to the need for flight in their respective environments. This illustrates how convergent evolution results in the development of similar adaptations that help organisms survive in similar ecological niches.

In contrast, divergent evolution involves related species becoming more different from one another over time, often as they adapt to different environments, while parallel evolution refers to species that are related but evolve in similar ways due to similar environments. Linear evolution, on the other hand, does not accurately represent the complexity of evolutionary changes that occur. Each of these alternative processes plays a role in evolutionary biology, but they do not explain the shared traits occurring specifically due to similar environmental challenges as effectively as convergent evolution does.