What is the primary outcome of strong stabilizing selection?

Strong stabilizing selection primarily operates by favoring the average phenotype in a population while selecting against extreme variations. This process effectively reduces the frequency of extreme phenotypes, leading to a population where the traits of individuals are more uniform and clustered around the average.

In nature, this means that individuals with traits that are too far from the mean are less likely to survive and reproduce, while those that possess traits closer to the mean tend to have higher fitness and reproductive success. As a result, over time, the gene pool becomes more concentrated around these average traits, reducing variation and promoting consistency in appearance and function among individuals within that population.

This selective pressure can stabilize a population's traits in response to environmental factors, maintaining the balanced characteristics that enhance survival. The outcome of this process can lead to evolutionary stability, whereby the population becomes well-suited to its environment as extreme variations are diminished.