A pleateau in a fitness landscape is a region where there is little or no change on the fitness function. This can a problem for methdos that use any form of hill climbing as small changes make no difference and hence it is not clear what changes to meke in order to improve the fitness.
Used in Chap. 4: pages 48, 51, 53, 55; Chap. 9: page 123; Chap. 11: pages 151, 152
Also known as plateaux