Price Equation - Simple Price Equation

Simple Price Equation

When the characters zi do not change from the parent to the child generation, the second term in the Price equation becomes zero resulting in a simplified version of the Price equation:


w\,\Delta z = \operatorname{cov}\left(w_i,z_i\right)

which can be restated as:


\Delta z = \operatorname{cov}\left(v_i,z_i\right)

where vi is the fractional fitness: vi= wi/w. This simple Price equation can be proven using the definition in Equation (2) above. It makes this fundamental statement about evolution: "If a certain inheritable characteristic is correlated with an increase in fractional fitness, the average value of that characteristic in the child population will be increased over that in the parent population."

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