What do we call it when individuals positioned in the
center of the population curve
have the highest fitness?
A. Directional selection
W
B. Disruptive selection
C. Stabilizing selection

help

C. Stabilizing selection

Explanation:

This question is portraying natural selection of a population, which can be of different types. In a population, individuals exhibit different traits, whose distribution gets altered when natural selection sets in.

Stabilizing selection is a type of natural selection said to occur when the environment selects against the extremes of a trait and favors the intermediate phenotype. In a population bell curve, individuals at the centre are the intermediate phenotypes and they exhibit the highest fitness.

In the case of stabilizing selection, the average or intermediate individuals of a population increases while the other two extremes of the population decreases as the selection is against them. Hence, the peak of the bell curve becomes higher after selection has occurred than in the normal distribution.

Therefore, when the individuals of a population positioned at the centre of a population curve (intermediate individuals) have the highest fitness (favored), the selection is said to be STABILIZING selection.