Word.ws English Dictionary

K-selection

K-selection noun: a theory involving natural selection based on quality.

Noun

K-selection (uncountable)

  1. A theory involving natural selection based on quality.

Origin of K-selection

Coined by the American ecologists Robert H. MacArthur and E. O. Wilson in 1967. The choice of the letter K came from the German Kapazitätsgrenze (“capacity limit”).

Questions about K-selection

What does K-selection mean?
K-selection means a theory involving natural selection based on quality.
What part of speech is K-selection?
K-selection is a noun.

Words near K-selection in the dictionary

  1. K-rails
  2. K-rat
  3. K-ration
  4. K-rations
  5. K-Rod
  6. K-selection
  7. K-shaped
  8. K-spar
  9. K-spars
  10. K-State
  11. K-Stew

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: K-selection (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “K-selection.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/k-selection. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.