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Updated: Jun 5, 2026

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations
Published on: February 3, 2023
Evolutionary consequences of indirect genetic effects
J B Wolf1, E D Brodie Iii, J M Cheverud
1Dept of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
Abstract:
Indirect genetic effects (IGEs) are environmental influences on the phenotype of one individual that are due to the expression of genes in a different, conspecific, individual. Historically, work has focused on the influence of parents on offspring but recent advances have extended this perspective to interactions among other relatives and even unrelated individuals. IGEs lead to complicated pathways of inheritance, where environmental sources of variation can be transmitted across generations and therefore contribute to evolutionary change. The existence of IGEs alters the genotype-phenotype relationship, changing the evolutionary process in some dramatic and non-intuitive ways.
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