FIGURE 3.

Purifying selection in action. Morphing distribution of $\mu$ (maturation rate) in one example realisation of a population under Fast environmental fluctuation shows early selection towards lower $\mu$; this reflects short‐term benefit for fast reproducers (high f) that are simply adding more offspring that resemble them quickly. Thereafter, costs associated with high reproduction allow alternate phenotypes to resurge in frequency (~t = 75), which momentarily raises population mean as well as variance. Soon, the distribution narrows towards an optimum and variance declines (yellow peak at t = 150)