Standardizing Selection Strengths to Study Selection in the Wild: A Critical Comparison and Suggestions for the Future

Shuichi Matsumura; Robert Arlinghaus; Ulf Dieckmann

doi:10.1525/bio.2012.62.12.6

We can help you reset your password using the email address linked to your BioOne Complete account.

For additional assistance, contact our Help Desk, helpdesk@bioone.org

Registered users receive a variety of benefits including the ability to customize email alerts, create favorite journals list, and save searches. Please note that a BioOne web account does not automatically grant access to full-text content. An institutional or society member subscription is required to view non-Open Access content. Contact helpdesk@bioone.org with any questions.

All Fields are Required

First Name

Last/Family Name

Password

Password Requirements: Minimum 8 characters, must include as least one uppercase, one lowercase letter, and one number or permitted symbol Valid Symbols for password:
~ Tilde
! Exclamation Mark
@ At sign
$ Dollar sign
^ Caret
( Opening Parenthesis
) Closing Parenthesis
_ Underscore
. Period

Confirm Password

Web Account created successfully

Shuichi Matsumura,^* Robert Arlinghaus,^** Ulf Dieckmann^***

^*Shuichi Matsumura (matsumur@gifu-u.ac.jp) is affiliated with the Faculty of Applied Biological Sciences at Gifu University, in Gifu, Japan, but most of the work for this article was completed while he was affiliated with the Evolution and Ecology Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, in Laxenburg, Austria, and with the Department of Biology and Ecology of Fishes at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, in Berlin, Germany.
^**Robert Arlinghaus is affiliated with the Department of Biology and Ecology of Fishes at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, in Berlin, Germany and with the Inland Fisheries Management Laboratory, in the Department for Crop and Animal Sciences, in the Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture, at Humboldt University of Berlin, in Berlin, Germany.
^***Ulf Dieckmann is affiliated with the Evolution and Ecology Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, in Laxenburg, Austria.

Abstract

We critically review the main approaches for standardizing and comparing selection differentials and gradients among traits, populations, and species and assess their differential merits. In particular, we explain why the most widespread approach to standardizing selection, which measures selection differentials in units of a trait's phenotypic standard deviation, is less appropriate for characterizing the strengths of natural selection in wild populations. In contrast, an alternative standardization approach that uses a trait's phenotypic mean in addition to its standard deviation results in another dimensionless measure: the mean-standardized selection gradient. This measure offers some key benefits over alternative approaches, such as ease of interpretation, independence of a trait's variance, and the natural interplay of ecological and evolutionary dynamics, and yet it remains rarely used by evolutionary biologists. We explain how the more routine application of this measure will facilitate comparisons of selection strengths in the wild among traits, populations, and species.

Citation Download Citation

Shuichi Matsumura, Robert Arlinghaus, and Ulf Dieckmann "Standardizing Selection Strengths to Study Selection in the Wild: A Critical Comparison and Suggestions for the Future," BioScience 62(12), 1039-1054, (1 December 2012). https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2012.62.12.6

Published: 1 December 2012