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Related Experiment Videos

Selection in a subdivided population with local extinction and recolonization.

Joshua L Cherry1

  • 1Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. cherry@oeb.harvard.edu

Genetics
|June 17, 2003
PubMed
Summary

Local extinction and recolonization in populations weaken natural selection. This process decreases the likelihood of advantageous alleles fixing and increases the likelihood of deleterious alleles fixing.

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Area of Science:

  • Population genetics
  • Evolutionary biology
  • Ecological dynamics

Background:

  • Subdivided populations experience local extinction and recolonization events.
  • These events introduce stochasticity into allele frequency changes.
  • The interplay between extinction-recolonization and natural selection is crucial for understanding allele dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the impact of local extinction and recolonization on the fate of selected alleles.
  • To determine how these processes modify the effects of natural selection.
  • To establish an equivalence between subdivided and unstructured populations for predicting allele behavior.

Main Methods:

  • Theoretical modeling of allele frequency dynamics in subdivided populations.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Derivation of an equivalence to unstructured (panmictic) populations.
  • Analysis of fixation probabilities and mean fixation times.
  • Computer simulations to validate theoretical predictions.

    • Main Results:

    • Extinction and recolonization weaken the effective force of natural selection.
    • The quantity N(e)s(e), crucial for fixation probability, is reduced.
    • Deleterious alleles show increased fixation probability.
    • Advantageous alleles exhibit decreased fixation probability.

    Conclusions:

    • Local extinction and recolonization significantly alter allele dynamics, often counteracting natural selection.
    • Established models for unstructured populations can be adapted to predict outcomes in structured populations.
    • These findings have implications for conservation genetics and evolutionary theory.