Assortative mating

Mary V Seeman1

  • 1Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, University of Toronto, 250 College St., Toronto M5T 1R8, Canada. mary.seeman@utoronto.ca

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Mate Choice01:20

Mate Choice

Mate choice—the decision about whom to mate with—is a type of natural selection, since animals must reproduce to pass down their genes. Mate choice is also called intersexual selection because the behavior occurs between the sexes.
Law of Independent Assortment02:03

Law of Independent Assortment

While Mendel’s Law of Segregation states that the two alleles for one gene are separated into different gametes, a different question of how different genes are inherited remains. For example, is the gene for tall plants inherited with the gene for green peas? Mendel asked this question by experimenting with a dihybrid cross; a cross in which both parents are homozygous for two distinct traits resulting in an F1 generation that are heterozygous for both traits.
Frequency-dependent Selection01:21

Frequency-dependent Selection

When the fitness of a trait is influenced by how common it is (i.e., its frequency) relative to different traits within a population, this is referred to as frequency-dependent selection. Frequency-dependent selection may occur between species or within a single species. This type of selection can either be positive—with more common phenotypes having higher fitness—or negative, with rarer phenotypes conferring increased fitness.
Natural Selection and Mating Preferences01:06

Natural Selection and Mating Preferences

The principle of natural selection posits that organisms better adapted to their environment are more likely to survive and reproduce. This principle is closely intertwined with mating preferences, a key aspect of sexual selection, which evolutionary psychologists believe is driven by instincts to propagate one's genes. Such instincts significantly influence mating behaviors and preferences between genders.
Females, due to their biological roles in conception, pregnancy, and nursing, inherently...
Inclusive Fitness00:57

Inclusive Fitness

Most altruistic behavior—in which one animal helps another at a cost to themselves—occurs between relatives. Scientists think these altruistic behaviors evolved because they increase the inclusive fitness of the animal providing help.
Hardy-Weinberg Principle01:49

Hardy-Weinberg Principle

Diploid organisms have two alleles of each gene, one from each parent, in their somatic cells. Therefore, each individual contributes two alleles to the gene pool of the population. The gene pool of a population is the sum of every allele of all genes within that population and has some degree of variation. Genetic variation is typically expressed as a relative frequency, which is the percentage of the total population that has a given allele, genotype or phenotype.