Skip to main content

Frequency-Dependent Selection

This video presents the same text shown beside it, spoken and on screen. It adds nothing the text does not say.

State

Frequency-dependent selection favors a phenotype based on how common or rare it currently is, rather than on any fixed advantage of the trait itself.

Show

Rare throat-color morphs among side-blotched lizards gain a reproductive advantage precisely because they are rare, negative frequency-dependent selection.

Watch for

A frequency-dependent trait's advantage can reverse as its own frequency changes — the favored phenotype cycles rather than settles.