Final answer:
A population with high heritability has a greater potential to evolve as it is more responsive to natural selection due to a higher amount of phenotypic variation resulting from genetic differences. Favorable traits are more likely to be passed on and become prevalent in such a population, thus being favored over populations with low genetic variance.
Step-by-step explanation:
In terms of evolutionary potential, a population with high heritability is indeed likely to be favored compared to one with low realized heritability. Heritability can be defined as the fraction of phenotype variation attributable to genetic differences among individuals in a population. High heritability indicates that a considerable amount of phenotypic variation is due to genetic variance, making the population more responsive to evolutionary forces like natural selection.
When changes occur in the environment, individuals with favorable heritable traits are more likely to adapt successfully, survive, and reproduce. Their offspring will inherit these advantageous traits, leading over time to a population that is increasingly well-suited to its environment. This genetic variance serves as the raw material for evolution, and populations with a greater amount of it can adapt more swiftly to changing environments.
It is important to note that natural selection acts on heritable traits. Therefore, a population with a high heritability will pass on favorable traits from one generation to the next, and as a result of this, such a population has a greater potential for evolutionary change. This change is driven by the selective pressures that favor certain alleles over others, leading to a shift in allele frequencies within the gene pool of the population.