How does disruptive selection affect a population's trait distribution?

Disruptive selection is a form of natural selection that favors individuals at both extremes of a trait distribution while selecting against the intermediate trait values. This leads to a population with two or more distinct trait morphs, as the extremes are more advantageous in a given environment. For example, in a scenario involving a resource that can only be effectively utilized by either very small or very large individuals, those at the extremes would have higher fitness compared to individuals with intermediate sizes. As a result, the population's overall trait distribution becomes more bimodal or multi-modal, rather than clustering around any intermediate value. This mechanism often drives evolutionary change by promoting diversity within the population, leading to speciation in some cases.