What are all the different types of selection in biology?

Answer 1

There's artificial selection and natural selection.

Artifical selection is when humans breed organisms for the traits they want, while natural selection is when individuals with the best fitness survive and produce more offspring than other individuals.

Three types of natural selection are directional, stabilizing, and disruptive.

1. Directional selection is when, between two traits, one trait becomes more common in a population because it benefits survival and/or reproduction more than the other trait.

   For example, some bacteria have weak antibiotic resistance while others are stronger. In an environment full of antibiotic drugs, antibiotic-resistance would eventually increase in a bacteria population.

2. Stabilizing selection is when, between two traits, the trait that's somewhere in between becomes the most common while the other two separate traits become less common.

   For example, gall-flies produce different-sized galls. Woodpeckers eat large galls, and wasps often attack small galls, middle-sized galls, which aren't targeted by predators, become more common.

3. Disruptive selection is when, between two traits, the trait in between them becomes less favorable, while the two separate traits become more favorable.

   For example, lazuli buntings range between brown color and blue color. Both colors help attract mates, but the bluish-brown birds are targeted by adults, so the bluish-brown become less common as the pure brown birds and the pure blue birds become more common.

There's also sexual selection, where a trait that increases mating success becomes more common in a population over generations.

Answer 2

The main types of selection in Biology are stabilizing selection (favours intermediate phenotypes), directional selection (favours one extreme phenotype), and disruptive selection (favours both extreme phenotypes). Additionally, sexual selection (selection based on mate choice) and artificial selection (selection by humans for specific traits) also play important roles in shaping populations.