Apart from the field of evolutionary biology, the concept of a Fitness Landscape has gained importance in evolutionary optimization methods such as genetic algorithms or evolutionary strategies. In evolutionary optimization, one tries to solve real-world problems (e.g., engineering or logistics problems) by imitating the dynamics of biological evolution...
a distribution of fitness values over the space of genotypes
a graph where each point of the search space is a node with its associated fitness
a mapping from a configuration space into the real numbers
a way of representing the ability of a genotype - or a society - to survive, with biologists conventionally representing greater fitness to survive by means of greater height on the landscape
a way of visualising fitness in terms of peaks, where natural selection will always push uphill but , resulting in suboptimality
The number of separate niches available within an organism's phase space, often regarded as peaks on a landscape. The higher the peak, the better the option, the steeper the slope the greater the selection pressure.
In evolutionary biology, fitness landscapes or adaptive landscapes are used to visualize the relationship between genotypes (or phenotypes) and reproductive success. It is assumed that every genotype has a well defined replication rate (often referred to as fitness). This fitness is the "height" of the landscape.