[2] In a broader biological context, the term first came to prominence with studies of locomotor abilities in lizards and snakes in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
[3] A seminal paper by Stevan J. Arnold in 1983[4] focused on the importance of performance as an intermediary between lower-level traits and how natural selection acts.
[8] For example, if a lizard that saw a predator approaching did not choose to run, then its ability to sprint would be irrelevant.
In any case, the original version of the conceptual model has stimulated much research in integrative organismal biology.
[9] However, contrary to the hypothesis that selection should be stronger on whole-organism functional performance traits (such as sprinting ability) than on correlated morphological traits, a review of empirical studies did not find evidence that selection measured in the wild was stronger on performance.