The Evolution of Long Tailed Lizards - The Breeder's Equation

Evolutionary biologists have a simple mathematical equation tat helps them predict what'll happen. It says that the change in tail length from one generation to the next depends on two things. The first is how much the escaped cats like long tailed lizards. If they like em a lot more than short tails, then the effect will be bigger. And the second factor is heritability of tail length. Heritability just describes how much genetic variation affects variation in the specific trait,. In this case, tail length. So when you multiply these two factors together, it tells you how much a trait will evolve.