Population genetics

'''Population genetics''' is the study of the distribution of and change in allele frequencies under the influence of the four evolutionary forces: natural selection, genetic drift, mutation and migration. It also takes account of population subdivision and population structure in space. As such, it is the theory that attempts to explain such phenomena as adaptation and speciation. Population genetics was a vital ingredient in the modern evolutionary synthesis, its primary founders were Sewall Wright, J. B. S. Haldane and Ronald Fisher, who also laid the foundations for the related discipline of quantitative genetics. Notable population geneticists of the mid-to-late 20th century include Japanese Motoo Kimura, American Richard Lewontin and Italian Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, and the Britons John Maynard Smith and W.D. Hamilton

Scope and theoretical considerations

Perhaps the most significant "formal" achievement of the modern evolutionary synthesis has been the framework of mathematical population genetics. Indeed some authors (Beatty 1986) would argue that it defines core of the modern synthesis. Lewontin (1974) outlined the theoretical task for population genetics. He imagined two spaces: a "genotypic space" and a "phenotypic space". The challenge of a complete theory of population genetics is to provide a set of laws that predictably map a population of genotypes (''G''₁) to a phenotype space (''P''₁), where selection takes place, and another set of laws that map the resulting population (''P''₂) back to genotype space (''G''₂) where Mendelian genetics can predict the next generation of genotypes, thus completing the cycle. Even Leaving aside for the moment the non-Mendelian aspects revealed by molecular genetics, this is clearly a gargantuan task. Visualizing this transformation: :$G\_1\; \backslash ightarrow^\{T\_1\}P\_1\; \backslash ightarrow^\{T\_2\}P\_2\; \backslash ightarrow^\{T\_3\}G\_2\; \backslash ightarrow^\{T\_4\}G\_1\text{'}\; \backslash ightarrow\; \backslash \backslash cdots$ (adapted from Lewontin 1974, p. 12). T¹ represents the genetic and epigenetic laws, the aspects of functional biology, or development, that transform a genotype into phenotype. We will refer to this as the "genotype-phenotype map". T² is the transformation due to natural selection, T³ are epigenetic relations that predict genotypes based on the selected phenotypes and finally T⁴ the rules of Mendelian genetics. In practice, there are two bodies of evolutionary theory that exist in parallel, traditional population genetics operating in the genotype space and the biometric theory used in plant and animal breeding, operating in phenotype space. The missing part is the mapping between the genotype and phenotype space. This leads to a "sleight of hand" (as Lewontin terms it) whereby variables in the equations of one domain, are considered parameters or constants, where, in a full-treatment they would be transformed themselves by the evolutionary process and are in reality functions of the state variables in the other domain. The "sleight of hand" is assuming that we know this mapping, and it is certainly true that it is sufficient to proceed as if we do understand it, to analyze many cases of interest. For example, if the phenotype is almost one-to-one with genotype (sickle-cell anemia) or the time-scale is sufficiently short, the "constants" can be treated as such; however, there are many situations where it is inaccurate.

See also

• Ecological genetics
• Fitness landscape
• Founder effect
• Genotype-phenotype distinction
• Hardy-Weinberg principle
• Microevolution
• Molecular evolution
• Muller's ratchet
• Mutational meltdown
• Population bottleneck
• Selection
• Small population size
• Ewens's sampling formula

References

• J. Beatty. 1986. "The synthesis and the synthetic theory" in Integrating Scientific Disciplines, edited by W. Bechtel and Nijhoff. Dordrecht.
• John Gillespie Population Genetics: A Concise Guide, Johns Hopkins Press, 1998 Order: ISBN 0-8018-5755-4
• Daniel Hartl Primer of Population Genetics, 3rd edition, Sinauer, 2000 Order: ISBN 0878933042
• Daniel Hartl and Andrew Clark Principles of Population Genetics, 3rd edition, Sinauer 1997 ISBN 0-87893-306-9
• Richard C. Lewontin. 1974. The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change. Columbia University Press. New York.

External links

• History of population genetics

de:Populationsgenetik fr:Génétique des populations nl:Populatiegenetica ja:集団遺伝学 zh:群体遗传学 Category:Evolutionary biology Category:Population genetics Category:Statistics

View Live Article.
This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under GNU FDL