The DOI matches its Crossref record; 3 of the 3 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The Strength of Phenotypic Selection in Natural Populations
Abstract
How strong is phenotypic selection on quantitative traits in the wild? We reviewed the literature from 1984 through 1997 for studies that estimated the strength of linear and quadratic selection in terms of standardized selection gradients or differentials on natural variation in quantitative traits for field populations. We tabulated 63 published studies of 62 species that reported over 2,500 estimates of linear or quadratic selection. More than 80% of the estimates were for morphological traits; there is very little data for behavioral or physiological traits. Most published selection studies were unreplicated and had sample sizes below 135 individuals, resulting in low statistical power to detect selection of the magnitude typically reported for natural populations. The absolute values of linear selection gradients |beta| were exponentially distributed with an overall median of 0.16, suggesting that strong directional selection was uncommon. The values of |beta| for selection on morphological and on life-history/phenological traits were significantly different: on average, selection on morphology was stronger than selection on phenology/life history. Similarly, the values of |beta| for selection via aspects of survival, fecundity, and mating success were significantly different: on average, selection on mating success was stronger than on survival. Comparisons of estimated linear selection gradients and differentials suggest that indirect components of phenotypic selection were usually modest relative to direct components. The absolute values of quadratic selection gradients |gamma| were exponentially distributed with an overall median of only 0.10, suggesting that quadratic selection is typically quite weak. The distribution of gamma values was symmetric about 0, providing no evidence that stabilizing selection is stronger or more common than disruptive selection in nature.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
The measurement of selection on correlated characters
Lande, R., & Arnold, S. J. (1983) · Evolution · doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.1983.tb00236.x · Cited by 5,437
QUANTITATIVE GENETIC ANALYSIS OF MULTIVARIATE EVOLUTION, APPLIED TO BRAIN:BODY SIZE ALLOMETRY
Lande, R. (1979) · Evolution · doi:10.1111/j.1558-5646.1979.tb04694.x · Cited by 2,648
Meta-analysis: synthesizing research findings in ecology and evolution
Arnqvist, G., & Wooster, D. (1995) · Trends in Ecology & Evolution · doi:10.1016/s0169-5347(00)89073-4 · Cited by 570
Cited by
Integrating animal temperament within ecology and evolution
Réale, D., Reader, S. M., Sol, D., McDougall, P. T., & Dingemanse, N. J. (2007) · Biological Reviews · doi:10.1111/j.1469-185x.2007.00010.x · Cited by 3,132
The impacts of climate change in coastal marine systems
Harley, C. D. G., Randall Hughes, A., Hultgren, K. M., Miner, B. G., Sorte, C. J. B., Thornber, C. S., Rodriguez, L. F., Tomanek, L., & Williams, S. L. (2006) · Ecology Letters · doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2005.00871.x · Cited by 2,700
Seven Shortfalls that Beset Large-Scale Knowledge of Biodiversity
Hortal, J., de Bello, F., Diniz-Filho, J. A. F., Lewinsohn, T. M., Lobo, J. M., & Ladle, R. J. (2015) · Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics · doi:10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-112414-054400 · Cited by 1,743
Personality and the emergence of the pace-of-life syndrome concept at the population level
Réale, D., Garant, D., Humphries, M. M., Bergeron, P., Careau, V., & Montiglio, P.-O. (2010) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2010.0208 · Cited by 1,446
Climate change, adaptation, and phenotypic plasticity: the problem and the evidence
Merilä, J., & Hendry, A. P. (2014) · Evolutionary Applications · doi:10.1111/eva.12137 · Cited by 1,369
The Genetic Architecture of Quantitative Traits
Mackay, T. F. C. (2001) · Annual Review of Genetics · doi:10.1146/annurev.genet.35.102401.090633 · Cited by 1,106
The evolutionary genetics of personality
Penke, L., Denissen, J. J. A., & Miller, G. F. (2007) · European Journal of Personality · doi:10.1002/per.629 · Cited by 610
The origin of mind: Evolution of brain, cognition, and general intelligence.
Geary, D. C. (2005) · doi:10.1037/10871-000 · Cited by 551
A population genetic signal of polygenic adaptation
Berg, J. J., & Coop, G. (2014) · PLoS Genetics · doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1004412 · Cited by 487
Morjan, C. L., & Rieseberg, L. H. (2004) · Molecular Ecology · doi:10.1111/j.1365-294x.2004.02164.x · Cited by 479
Egg size and offspring quality: a meta‐analysis in birds
Krist, M. (2011) · Biological Reviews · doi:10.1111/j.1469-185x.2010.00166.x · Cited by 472
Jiang, Y., Bolnick, D. I., & Kirkpatrick, M. (2013) · The American Naturalist · doi:10.1086/670160 · Cited by 427
Pennell, M. W., & Harmon, L. J. (2013) · Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1111/nyas.12157 · Cited by 255
Darwin in Mind: New Opportunities for Evolutionary Psychology
Bolhuis, J. J., Brown, G. R., Richardson, R. C., & Laland, K. N. (2011) · PLoS Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001109 · Cited by 242
The population genetics of mutations: good, bad and indifferent
Loewe, L., & Hill, W. G. (2010) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2009.0317 · Cited by 226
Natural Selection on Male Wealth in Humans
Nettle, D., & Pollet, T. V. (2008) · The American Naturalist · doi:10.1086/591690 · Cited by 205
Meta‐analysis of magnitudes, differences and variation in evolutionary parameters
Morrissey, M. B. (2016) · Journal of Evolutionary Biology · doi:10.1111/jeb.12950 · Cited by 149
Principles of evolutionary educational psychology
Geary, D. C. (2002) · Learning and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/s1041-6080(02)00046-8 · Cited by 163
Sexual size dimorphism in birds
Székely, T., Lislevand, T., & Figuerola, J. (2007) · Sex, Size and Gender Roles · doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199208784.003.0004 · Cited by 160
Sexual selection and human life history
Geary, D. C. (2003) · Advances in Child Development and Behavior · doi:10.1016/s0065-2407(02)80039-8 · Cited by 136
Livezey, B. C. (2003) · Ornithological Monographs · doi:10.2307/40168337 · Cited by 81
Nine decades of decreasing phenotypic variability in Atlantic cod
Olsen, E. M., Carlson, S. M., Gjøsæter, J., & Stenseth, N. C. (2009) · Ecology Letters · doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2009.01311.x · Cited by 76
Meta-analysis of meta-analyses in plant evolutionary ecology
Castellanos, M. C., & Verdú, M. (2012) · Evolutionary Ecology · doi:10.1007/s10682-012-9562-6 · Cited by 19
Zanoaga, M.-D., Cavinato, T., Latrille, T., Liska, O., Schoeler, T., Papp, B., & Kutalik, Z. (2026) · doi:10.64898/2026.10.16.759432
Metadata
- Authors
- Kingsolver, J. G., Hoekstra, H. E., Hoekstra, J. M., Berrigan, D., Vignieri, S. N., Hill, C. E., Hoang, A., Gibert, P., & Beerli, P.
- Venue
- The American Naturalist
- Publisher
- University of Chicago Press
- Published
- 2001-03
- Volume
- 157
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 245-261
- ISSN
- 0003-0147 (ISSN-L)
- 1537-5323
- OpenAlex
- W2085683389
- Cited by
- 1,798
- References
- 3
- FWCI
- 79.32
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.