About: Developmental selection

Developmental selection is selection that occurs on developmental units in an organism, such as cell lineages, embryos, and gametes or gametophytes. Generally, developmental selection is differentiated from natural selection because the targets of selection are internal to an organism contain the developmental units, rather than selection due to external environmental factors that favor specific phenotypes. However, in animals, developmental selection against offspring can manifest in the external environment, in which parents might select against offspring with developmental instabilities, or when offspring with deleterious malformations may not survive.