What type of natural selection favors individuals with intermediate phenotypes while acting against extreme phenotypic variants at both ends of the spectrum?
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: D. Stabilizing selection
- Step 1: Differentiate modes of natural selection on polygenic traits.
- Step 2: Stabilizing selection favors the intermediate average phenotype (e.g., human birth weight), reducing phenotypic variance while keeping the mean trait value constant.
Answer
Stabilizing selection.
Why not the others: Directional selection favors one extreme; disruptive selection favors both extremes over the intermediate; sexual selection selects for mating success traits.
Practise more Organisms, Evolution and Ecosystems.
Free questions with an explanation for every one, and full timed EmSAT Achieve (UAE) mock tests.
More Organisms, Evolution and Ecosystems questions
- In humans, hemophilia A is an X-linked recessive disorder. A carrier woman (XᴴXʰ) and an unaffected man (XᴴY) have children. What is the pro…
- In a population in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, the frequency of a recessive allele (q) is 0.20. What percentage of the population is expecte…
- Which part of the human nephron is primarily responsible for establishing a high hypertonic osmotic gradient in the renal medulla via a coun…
- According to Lindeman's efficiency rule in ecosystem ecology, approximately what fraction of energy is transferred from one trophic level to…
- Which chamber of the human heart pumps oxygen-rich blood into the systemic aorta under high systolic pressure?
- What hormone is secreted by the beta cells of the pancreatic islets of Langerhans in response to elevated blood glucose levels?