The idea of evolution driven by natural selection was put forth jointly by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace. They independently developed the concept and presented their papers together in 1858 before the Linnean Society in London. Darwin elaborated on the idea in his influential 1859 book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection where he described natural selection as the process by which individuals best adapted to their environments are more likely to survive and reproduce, leading to the evolution of species over time
. Darwin's theory was inspired by his observations during the voyage of HMS Beagle and by the economist Thomas Malthus's work on population growth and resource limits. Wallace, who traveled to the Amazon and Southeast Asia, independently arrived at similar conclusions about how species evolve through natural selection
. Thus, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace are credited with putting forth the idea of evolution driven by natural selection.
