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What is the difference between directional selection and disruptive selection

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User Holtwick
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Directional selection is where one phenotype is favored, so an example would be "a population of madagascar hissing cockroaches suffers heavy predation from lizards. Because their heads are small, the lizards are unable to eat the very largest adult cockroaches, and instead prey upon small and medium sized adults, so as a result the large cockroaches are favored and live".
Meanwhile, disruptive selection is where both extreme phenotypes are favored, an example would be "a population of rabbits can have black fur, white fur or grey fur. This population of rabbits lives in an area of white rocks. When a local volcano erupts, black volcanic rock now dots the landscape amongst the white rocks. Now the black and white rabbits live longer because the black and white spots on the landscape camoflauge them. The two extreme phenotypes are being favored."
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User Mehrmoudi
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