Natural Selection: Types of Selection
Environmental factors that affect the chance of survival of an organism
are selection pressures
o For example, there could be high competition for food between lions if
there is not plentiful prey available
o This environmental factor ‘selects’ for faster, more powerful lions that are
better hunters
These selection pressures can have different effects on the allele frequencies of
a population through natural selection
There are three types of selection:
o Stabilising
o Disruptive
o Directional
Stabilising selection
Stabilising selection is natural selection that keeps allele frequencies
relatively constant over generations
o This means that allele frequencies stay constant unless there is a
change in the environment
A classic example of stabilising selection can be seen in human birth weights
o Very low and very high birth weights are selected against leading to
the maintenance of intermediate birth weights
It is disadvantageous to have a very low birth weight because it
increases the risk of health complications for the baby
It is disadvantageous to have a very high birth weight as this
increases the risk of birth complications
Stabilising Selection Graph
Directional selection
Directional selection is natural selection that produces a gradual change in
allele frequencies over several generations
This usually happens when there is a change in the environment or new
selection pressures which leads to a certain allele becoming advantageous
For example, a recent finding has shown that climate change is having an effect
on fish size in certain habitats; the increase in temperature is selecting for a
smaller body size and against a larger body size
o Warmer seas cause fish metabolism to speed up and so increase their
need for oxygen; oxygen levels are lower in warmer seas
o Larger fish have greater metabolic needs than smaller fish, so they feel
the effect of increased temperatures more strongly
o Organisms are sensitive to changes in temperature primarily because of
the effect that temperature can have on enzyme activity
o Fish with a smaller body size are therefore fitter and better adapted to
living in seas experiencing increased temperatures
o Fish body size is determined by both genetic and environmental factors
o Fish of a smaller size are more likely to reproduce and pass on their
alleles to offspring
o Over generations, this leads to an increase in
the frequency of alleles that code for a small body size and a decrease in
the frequency of alleles that code for a larger body size
Directional Selection Graph
Disruptive selection
Disruptive selection is natural selection that maintains high frequencies of
two different sets of alleles
o In other words, individuals with intermediate phenotypes or alleles are
selected against
Disruptive selection maintains polymorphism; the continued existence of two or
more distinct phenotypes in species
This can occur in an environment that shows variation
For example, birds that live on the Galapagos Islands use their beaks to forage
for different-sized seeds
o Different sizes of seed are more efficiently foraged by a shorter or longer
beak than by a medium-sized beak
o The size of the bird's beaks are either small or large with the intermediate,
medium-sized beak selected against
Natural Selection: Changes in Allele Frequencies
Evolution involves changes in allele frequencies over time
This can be caused by natural selection
o Selection pressures (caused by abiotic and biotic factors) decrease the
likelihood that certain individuals with specific alleles survive to
reproductive age, preventing them from passing on their alleles to their
offspring
In addition to natural selection, it is also possible for allele frequencies to change
as a result of chance; this can occur due to a process known as genetic drift
Other processes that can cause changes in allele frequencies due to chance
events include
o The founder effect
o The bottleneck effect
Natural selection
When a new allele arises in a population or a change in the
environment occurs, directional selection can happen
Directional selection produces a gradual change in allele frequencies over
several generations
o There is always phenotypic variation within a population
o There is a selection pressure in the environment, e.g. the presence of a
predator
o Some individuals in a population may have a phenotype that aids their
survival in the presence of a selection pressure
The phenotype is produced by particular alleles
o Individuals with the favoured phenotype are fitter and so more likely to
reproduce and pass on the advantageous alleles to their offspring
o Those who do not possess the advantageous allele or phenotype are less
likely to survive and pass on their alleles to their offspring
o So over time and several generations, the frequency of the
advantageous allele increases and the frequency of other alleles
decreases
Genetic drift
When a population is very small, chance can affect which alleles get passed on
to the next generation
o Meiosis results in haploid gametes, meaning that a fertilisation event only
passes on half of the alleles of an individual
o The half that gets passed on is the result of random fertilisation, and the
other half of the alleles may not make it to the next generation
Over time some alleles can be lost or passed on purely by chance; this is
genetic drift
Genetic drift is more likely to affect allele frequencies in a small population
o eg. if a coin is tossed 10 times it is reasonably likely that heads will not
come up at all, whereas if a coin is tossed 100 times and heads doesn't
come up at all you would think you had a faulty coin!
o Similarly, the chances of a certain allele simply being lost by chance as a
result of random fertilisation are much greater if only 10 pairs of birds are
breeding than if there are 100 pairs of birds breeding
Example of genetic drift in plants
In a small population of five plants growing near a playground with a rubber floor,
three of the plants have blue flowers and two of the plants have pink flowers
By chance, most of the seeds from the pink-flowered plants end up on the rubber
floor of the playground while all the seeds from the blue-flowered plants land on
fertile soil where they are able to germinate and grow
o Note that the seeds from the pink flower do not fall on the impermeable
surface because of any disadvantageous allele in the plant's genome, but
purely by chance, eg. because of a gust of wind or a passing animal
If this happens by chance over several generations the allele for the pink
flowers may be lost from this population
The Founder Effect
The founder effect occurs when a small number of individuals from a large parent
population start a new population
o The founder effect can come about as the result of chance
eg. a chance event such as a storm may separate a small group of
individuals from the main population
As the new population is made up of only a few individuals from the original
population, only some of the total alleles from the parent population will be
present
o In other words, not all of the gene pool is present in the smaller
population
Because the population that results from the founder effect is very small it
is more susceptible to the effects of genetic drift
The founder effect in lizards
Anole lizards inhabit most Caribbean Islands and they can travel from one
island to another via floating debris or vegetation
A small number of lizards may be separated from the main population on a larger
island and carried away to a smaller island by a chance event such as a large
ocean wave or a storm
The lizards arriving at a new island may only carry a small range of alleles
between them, with many more alleles present in the lizard population on the
original island
o eg. the lizards on the original island could display a range of scale colours
from white to yellow and the two individual lizards that arrived on the
island may have white scales
This means that the whole population that grows on that island
might only have individuals with white scales
In comparison, the original island population has a mixture of white
and yellow-scaled individuals.
If the yellow allele were recessive and present as a single copy in the original two
lizards that arrived on the island, the chance of it being lost as a result of genetic
drift is increased due to the small size of the gene pool
Bottleneck effect
The bottleneck effect is similar to the founder effect
It occurs when a previously large population suffers a dramatic fall in numbers
A major environmental event can greatly reduce the number of individuals in a
population which in turn reduces the genetic diversity in the population
as alleles are lost
The surviving individuals end up breeding and reproducing with close relatives
Example of the bottleneck effect
A clear example of a genetic bottleneck can be seen in cheetahs today
Roughly 10,000 years ago there was a large and genetically diverse cheetah
population
Most of the population was suddenly killed off when the climate
changed drastically at the end of the Ice Age
As a result, the surviving cheetahs were isolated in small populations and lots
of inbreeding occurred
This meant that the cheetah population today has a lack of genetic variation
This is problematic for conservation as genetic variation within a species
increases the likelihood that the species is able to respond in the event of any
environmental changes
o Remember the environment exerts a selection pressure on organisms
Process Result
Natural Selection pressures produce a gradual change in allele frequencies over several
Selection generations.
Founder Changes in allele frequencies occur in a different direction for the newly isolated sma
effect population in comparison to the larger parent population due to chance.
Gradual change in allele frequencies in a small population due to chance and not natu
Genetic drift
selection.
Bottleneck
Reduction in the gene pool of a population due to a dramatic decrease in population
effect