ENOTYPIC fitness is the probable contribution a zygote of a given genotype will make to the gene pool which forms the next generation. This contribution is usually measured relative to that of a standard genotype. Fitness, as determined from changes in genotypic distribution in a population, and the laws of recombination summarize a population's past and future systematic genetic change. Further motives for fitness estimation are these: Certain epistatic relations for fitness and certain recombhation rates between loci would lead to long-term maintenance of genetic variability in a population [for example, see LEWONTIN 1964)]. Whether these relations between epistasis and linkage exist awaits fitness estimation in multilocus populations. The relationship between fitness and components of fitness remains tenuous. A physiological component of fitnesssuch as mating speed or hatchability in vinegar flies-connotes the intuition that the state of the character is systematically related to fitness. (See VAN VALEN (1969) for an attack on this problem.) Demonstration of the relationship requires a measure of fitness independent of the measure of the character state.
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Jerome Wilson (1970) studied this question.