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selective advantage

n. (context biology English) The characteristic of an organism that enables it to survive and reproduce better than other organisms in a population in a given environment; the basis for evolution by natural selection.

Usage examples of "selective advantage".

Once intelligent beings achieve technology and the capacity for self-destruction of their species, the selective advantage of intelligence becomes more uncertain .

And later, too, as life forms developed, and tribalities became of selective advantage, it doubtless proved its value for group integrity and consolidation, much as might have a nest odor among certain social insects or a pack odor among social rodents.

The development of tracking skills delivers a powerful evolutionary selective advantage.

At the very least it suggested that the selective advantage enjoyed by resistant bacteria was somehow being accentuated in the South Central community as a whole.

Back in prehistoric times, the knack for opportunistic self-deception gave its possessors so enormous a selective advantage that it quickly spread throughout the hominid gene pool.