Lineage selection occurs when the frequency of one biological
lineage changes relative to another lineage. Lineage selection is a generalization of individual based
natural selection
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Cha ...
; the stating that an allele is favored by natural selection is equivalent to stating that the lineage bearing the allele is favored by natural selection.
For alleles with simple positive or negative fitness effects, lineage and individual based selection are equivalent. However, lineage selection can accommodate a wider array of evolutionary phenomena, such as the adaptive evolution of
evolvability
Evolvability is defined as the capacity of a system for adaptive evolution. Evolvability is the ability of a population of organisms to not merely generate genetic diversity, but to generate ''adaptive'' genetic diversity, and thereby evolve throu ...
,
altruism, and
recombination.
Additionally, lineage selection is useful in determining the effects of mutations in highly structured environments such as tumors.
References
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Altruism
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