The fossil record resembles the living species in the same geographic area. How does this pattern, also known as the law of succession, support the theory of evolution by natural selection?

Succession is a natural process as the natural selection, they follow the life rules.

Explanation:

In natural selection, the species will survive depending the characteristics and the abilities that it had to survive in an ecosystem. In succession, is shown how a domain specie lives in an a ecosystem, but as a natural rule of life, if this specie for any reason has a lack of food, shelter, breathe, etc, it will die, opening the way to new species to become the dominant specie in that ecosystem.