apostatic selection

a type of FREQUENCY-DEPENDENT SELECTION occurring in a species with several morphological forms, and classically used in relation to prey species that are visually POLYMORPHIC. The amount of predation of each type is directly related to the relative MORPH frequencies.

Collins Dictionary of Biology, 3rd ed. © W. G. Hale, V. A. Saunders, J. P. Margham 2005

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frequency-dependent selection

References in periodicals archive ?

Another argument proposed for the occurrence and maintenance for polymorphism is apostatic selection, the primary hypothesis for color polymorphism maintenance in cryptic animals.

Sampling of terrestrial salamanders reveals previously unreported atypical color morphs in the southern red-backed salamander Plethodon serratus

Clarke (1969) and others (reviewed in Allen 1988) have argued that frequency-dependent selection on color morphs as a result of differential predation (apostatic selection) is responsible for the maintenance of many visible polymorphisms.

Selection of the color polymorphism in Hawaiian happy-face spiders: evidence from genetic structure and temporal fluctuations

Apostatic selection, the selective advantage to whichever phenotype is in the minority, is regarded as an important factor for maintenance of defense polymorphisms (Thompson 1984; Greenwood 1984; Allen 1988; Endler 1988 and references therein).