Question

explain why it is a useless exercise to compare the relative fitness of two separate species.

Answer 1

Answer 3-2:

The fitness of an organism of relative reproductive success and therefore is defined as the capability of an organism to leave behind number of offspring. The phenotype and genotype that survive are known to have the best fitness and thus it helps in the determination of the reproductive fitness and the ability of an organism in general.

It is useless to compare or measure the fitness between two different species because the ability of producing offspring and its number differs in different species. Each organism also has its own level of fitness based on which they reproduce and thus it is not right to compare them. For example: If we measure the fitness between fish and humans, we cannot actually draw a comparison as both are entirely different from each other. The fish produces eggs in thousands from which offspring born and the human can produce minimum one child at a time.