Disruptive natural selection tends to favor which of the following?

Disruptive natural selection is a type of natural selection that favors individuals at both extremes of a trait distribution, rather than those with average traits. In environments where two different ecological niches exist, individuals with extreme phenotypes may have advantages for survival and reproduction.

For example, consider a scenario where a population of birds has varying beak sizes. If there are two distinct food sources that only individuals with larger or smaller beaks can efficiently exploit, the birds with average-sized beaks may struggle to thrive. Thus, birds with very large or very small beaks are more likely to survive and reproduce, leading to increased frequencies of these extreme traits in subsequent generations. This process can ultimately increase the diversity of phenotypes within the population.

The other options focus on traits that do not align with the principles of disruptive selection, as they suggest a preference for average, neutral, or equal traits instead of the extremes that characterize this form of selection.