Which concept suggests that the environment can influence physical characteristics over generations?

The concept that suggests the environment can influence physical characteristics over generations is environmental adaptation. This concept focuses on how organisms change in response to their surrounding environment, which can lead to modifications in traits that enhance survival and reproduction in specific environments. Such adaptations occur through gradual modifications over many generations, as populations develop advantageous traits that help them better survive challenges such as climate, food resources, and predators.

Natural selection is closely related to this idea but emphasizes the process by which these advantageous traits become more common in a population due to individuals with those traits having higher reproductive success. While both environmental adaptation and natural selection involve changes in response to the environment, the term "environmental adaptation" specifically highlights the adjustments made in physical characteristics over generations due to environmental factors.

Social evolution pertains to the development of social structures and cultural practices within societies, and genetic drift refers to random changes in allele frequencies within a population. These concepts do not specifically address how environment-driven changes manifest in physical characteristics over generations as environmental adaptation does.