Question

Barnacles are organisms that live in aquatic environments and live stationary lives attached to hard surfaces. Their feathery appendages catch food as it passes by, making them very successful in tidal waters and within coral reefs. How would scientists best determine the fitness of barnacle populations?
counting the number of surviving offspring a population produces

placing the barnacles in a new environment to determine survival rates of populations

studying the frequency of genes and alleles to determine fitness

counting the number of identical offspring produced by a parent population

Answer 1

The correct option is A.
Fitness refers to the quantitative representation of natural and sexual selection within an evolution. Fitness can be defined in respect to a genotype or a phenotype. Relative fitness is described as the survival or reproductive rate of a genotype or phenotype relative to maximum survival or reproductive rate of other genotypes in the population. Thus, the fitness of a population can be determined by finding out the number of offspring that survive to adulthood.