439,633 views
39 votes
39 votes
A major point of understanding natural selection is that not all organisms in population get to reproduce. Consider the term fitness as used in biology. How does this term relate to natural selection?

User The Cook
by
2.5k points

2 Answers

29 votes
29 votes

Fitness is the quantitative representation of natural and sexual selection and describes individual reproductive success. Fitness can be defined either with respect to a genotype or to a phenotype. Natural selection can cause a change in allele frequencies, with fitness-increasing alleles becoming more common in the population.
User Hamid Jolany
by
3.5k points
22 votes
22 votes
Fitness is the quantitative representation of natural and sexual selection and describes individual reproductive success. Fitness can be defined either with respect to a genotype or to a phenotype. Natural selection can cause a change in allele frequencies, with fitness-increasing alleles becoming more common in the population.
User Sanny Sin
by
3.0k points