The measurement of Darwinian fitness in human populations

• Published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences Vol. 222; no. 1226; pp. 33 - 50
• Main Authors: Demetrius, L., Ziehe, M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London The Royal Society 23-07-1984; Royal Society of London
• Subjects: Age distribution; Biological and medical sciences; Darwinism; Demography; Ecological competition; Entropy; Fecundity; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Genealogy; Genetics of eukaryotes. Biological and molecular evolution; Human populations; Mortality; Population genetics, reproduction patterns; Population parameters; Theories and miscellaneous; Human; Population genetics; Fitness; Natural selection
• ISSN: 0080-4649; 2053-9193
• DOI: 10.1098/rspb.1984.0048

Darwinian fitness of a biological trait refers to the contribution to successive generations made by individuals possessing the trait. This contribution depends on the age-specific fecundity and mortality of the individuals in the population. This paper gives, for human populations, an empirical study of two measures of Darwinian fitness: the Malthusian parameter, which describes the rate of increase of the actual population size, and entropy which describes the rate of increase of the effective population size. This empirical study indicates that Darwinian fitness is measured by entropy. This finding is in accord with the predictions of recent theoretical studies.