Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Conservation of Small Populations02:04

Conservation of Small Populations

13.7K
Small population sizes put a species at extreme risk of extinction due to a lack of variation, and a consequent decrease in adaptability. This weakens the chances of survival under pressures such as climate change, competition from other species, or new diseases. Large populations are more likely to survive pressures such as these, as such populations are more likely to harbor individuals that have genetic variants that are adaptive under new stresses. Small populations are much less...
13.7K
What is Population Genetics?01:25

What is Population Genetics?

60.0K
A population is composed of members of the same species that simultaneously live and interact in the same area. When individuals in a population breed, they pass down their genes to their offspring. Many of these genes are polymorphic, meaning that they occur in multiple variants. Such variations of a gene are referred to as alleles. The collective set of all the alleles within a population is known as the gene pool.
60.0K
Genetic Drift03:33

Genetic Drift

41.1K
Natural selection—probably the most well-known evolutionary mechanism—increases the prevalence of traits that enhance survival and reproduction. However, evolution does not merely propagate favorable traits, nor does it always benefit populations.
41.1K
Mutation, Gene Flow, and Genetic Drift01:09

Mutation, Gene Flow, and Genetic Drift

59.6K
In a population that is not at Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, the frequency of alleles changes over time. Therefore, any deviations from the five conditions of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium can alter the genetic variation of a given population. Conditions that change the genetic variability of a population include mutations, natural selection, non-random mating, gene flow, and genetic drift (small population size).
59.6K
Polygenic Traits01:18

Polygenic Traits

66.8K
When more than one gene is responsible for a given phenotype, the trait is considered polygenic. Human height is a polygenic trait. Studies have uncovered hundreds of loci that influence height, and there are believed to be many more. Due to the high number of genes involved, as well as environmental and nutritional factors, height varies significantly within a given population. The distribution of height forms a bell-shaped curve, with relatively few individuals in the population at the...
66.8K
Genome Size and the Evolution of New Genes03:21

Genome Size and the Evolution of New Genes

2.7K
2.7K

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

High-precision tracking of human foragers reveals adaptive social information use in the wild.

Science (New York, N.Y.)·2026
Same author

Memory, innovation and vertical learning.

PLoS computational biology·2025
Same author

Gene-culture association and coevolution.

Theoretical population biology·2025
Same author

Author Correction: Adaptive mechanisms of social and asocial learning in immersive collective foraging.

Nature communications·2025
Same author

Adaptive mechanisms of social and asocial learning in immersive collective foraging.

Nature communications·2025
Same author

Bridging theory and data: A computational workflow for cultural evolution.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2024
Same journal

Another 10 years of PLOS Computational Biology: A data-driven reflection on trends in genomics research.

PLoS computational biology·2026
Same journal

Mobility data resolution needed to inform predictive models of spatial epidemic spread from mobile phone data.

PLoS computational biology·2026
Same journal

DeepMethylation: A deep learning framework for tissue-specific DNA methylation prediction and functional variant annotation.

PLoS computational biology·2026
Same journal

Redefining and estimating the early-phase reproduction ratio for epidemic outbreaks in spatially structured populations.

PLoS computational biology·2026
Same journal

Optimized phenotype definitions boost GWAS power.

PLoS computational biology·2026
Same journal

Detection, communication, and individual identification with deep audio embeddings: A case study with North Atlantic right whales.

PLoS computational biology·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Sep 27, 2025

Daily Transfers, Archiving Populations, and Measuring Fitness in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with Escherichia coli
15:00

Daily Transfers, Archiving Populations, and Measuring Fitness in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with Escherichia coli

Published on: August 18, 2023

3.5K

Effective population size for culturally evolving traits.

Dominik Deffner1,2,3, Anne Kandler1, Laurel Fogarty1

  • 1Department of Human Behavior, Ecology and Culture, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany.

Plos Computational Biology
|April 8, 2022
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Cultural effective population size (Ne) is crucial for diversity. Learning methods, network structure, and migration impact Ne and cultural diversity, requiring detailed process knowledge for accurate inference.

More Related Videos

Culture and Assay of Large-Scale Mixed-Stage Caenorhabditis elegans Populations
08:51

Culture and Assay of Large-Scale Mixed-Stage Caenorhabditis elegans Populations

Published on: May 5, 2021

5.2K
Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations
04:52

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations

Published on: February 3, 2023

1.1K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Sep 27, 2025

Daily Transfers, Archiving Populations, and Measuring Fitness in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with Escherichia coli
15:00

Daily Transfers, Archiving Populations, and Measuring Fitness in the Long-Term Evolution Experiment with Escherichia coli

Published on: August 18, 2023

3.5K
Culture and Assay of Large-Scale Mixed-Stage Caenorhabditis elegans Populations
08:51

Culture and Assay of Large-Scale Mixed-Stage Caenorhabditis elegans Populations

Published on: May 5, 2021

5.2K
Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations
04:52

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations

Published on: February 3, 2023

1.1K

Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary Anthropology
  • Computational Social Science
  • Population Genetics

Background:

  • Population size influences cultural diversity and complexity.
  • Effective population size (Ne), not census size (N), governs evolutionary parameters in genetics.
  • The concept of Ne needs examination for culturally evolving traits.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how cultural effective population size (Ne) and diversity depend on learning, connectedness, and social networks.
  • To model cultural evolution processes mathematically and computationally.

Main Methods:

  • Mathematical and computational modeling.
  • Analysis of cultural transmission (one-to-many, frequency-dependent).
  • Simulation of social network structures (random, scale-free, small-world) and migration effects.

Main Results:

  • One-to-many and frequency-dependent transmission can reduce cultural Ne.
  • Network structure impacts Ne: scale-free networks decrease Ne, small-world networks increase Ne.
  • Larger cultural Ne correlates with higher diversity for one-to-many transmission and specific networks; migration can increase diversity independently of Ne.

Conclusions:

  • Defining and inferring cultural Ne requires understanding specific transmission, network, and migration processes.
  • Effective population size is a critical, yet complex, factor in cultural evolution and diversity.
  • Migration's effect on diversity can be independent of effective population size.