Question

During the 1800s, seal hunters preferred dark-furred seals from natural seal populations. What effect would best describe what this did to the remaining seal populations over time?

stabilizing selection

creation of a genetic bottleneck

special creation

no effect at all

Answer 1

If the dark-furred seals from natural seal populations are the seals with most common phenotype (dark fur is phenotype) in the population than the effect is stabilizing selection.

Stabilizing selection is a type of natural selection that favors mean values over the extreme ones. Stabilizing selection is the opposite of disruptive selection which favors both extreme values.