Frozen Evolution. Or, that’s not the way it is, Mr. Darwin. A Farewell to Selfish Gene.

The concept of random and nonrandom elimination(random and nonrandom selection) is related to a certain degree to the concepts of r- and K-strategies.Individuals can be removed from the population either at random, and then the probability of the death of a certain individual will not depend in any way on his genotype, or differentially, in dependence on the genotype of the individual.A typical example ofrandom elimination consists in the reduction of the population of plankton fauna by a filtrator.

            It is apparent that nonrandom elimination is always accompanied by natural selection.It is less apparent that random elimination is also accompanied by natural selection.While nonrandom elimination can lead to selection in favour of basically any trait, random elimination always selects in favour of rapid reproduction.Here, a certain connection can be seen with the model of r- and K-strategies, as most traits characteristic for r-strategists are in some way connected with a tendency to attain the maximum rate of reproduction.Consequently, some biologists are of the opinion that the existence of two different strategies, r and K, is based on differences between random andnonrandom elimination of superfluous individuals in the population.