Common vs Rare Trait Selection

Common vs rare trait selection describes how a trait’s fitness can change based on how often it appears in a population. This process is called frequency-dependent selection. It can happen between species or within a single species. The effect may be positive, where common phenotypes do better, or negative, where rare phenot...

Natural selection can depend on how common or rare a phenotype is in a population. This is called frequency-dependent selection. Here, a phenotype’s fitness, or the ability to survive and reproduce, depends on its frequency in the population.

In positive frequency-dependent selection, as a phenotype becomes more common, its fitness within ...