Selection and Drift Flashcards
what is the difference between continuous traits and discrete traits?
continuous traits are contributed to by many loci, each allele has a small effect. Discrete traits are determined by one or a few loci, there are large allelic effects and has a discontinuous distribution
what are 5 examples of single gene traits?
antibiotic resistance in bacteria, reisstance to pesticides, human resistance to malaria, human genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis and huntingtons
what type of trait is the colour of the peppered moth determined by?
a single allele- it is a discontinuous trait
what are the two types of peppered moth?
typica and carbonaria
what is the peppered moth an example of?
selection at a single locus - discontinuous trait
how many alleles determine moth pigmentation?
two alleles at one locus
was the C allele for carbonaria recessive or dominant?
dominant
how can looking at the carbonara moths frequency over time be useful?
it is useful because once you study the change in allele frequency you can predict evolution in the future, calculate the force of selection and test biological scenarios- by following a few generations you can predict how the allele frequencies will change over time
how can looking at changes in allele frequency over time be used?
can be used to see if selection is occurring (does it follow hardy weinberg), can be used to predict evolution
what is neutral evolution?
when there is no selection occurring for an allele however allele frequencies occur due to genetic drift
why does stochasticity matter in small populations but not large populations?
in large populations random changes in allele frequency can occur outside of hardy weinberg- this can occur if animals randomly die or produce more or less young. however in large populations this is normally evened out. However, in small populations there is little room ofr adjustments to occur without perturbing from hardy weinberg- therefore the fitness of Wcc not always 1-s… can be greater
when does evolution but no adaptation occur?
when genetic drift can occur in smaller populations
what are the 2 consequences of drift?
loss of genetic diversity, genetic differentiation between populations
give an example of how genetic drift can occur in a single self fertilising individual?
this single self fertilising individual can produce an offspring that will either be CC or Cc or cc, if either homozygous occurs then heterozygosity will be lost forever and C will become fixed the probability of this occurring is 1/2over a single generation
what happens to allele frequency in smaller populations?
fixation and loss
what is an example of loss of diversity in an organism experiment?
drosophila melanogaster- Bw eye colour- 107 populations- populations mostly because fixed to bw or bw 75
when is drift stronger in terms of Ne?
when there is a low effective population size
what is lek polygyny and how does it contribute to genetic drift?
Lek polygyny involves females being driven in pursuit of males- males form aggregates in neutral locations and perform so that the females can compare and decide on the best male- when this occurs there is normally a great reproductive skew with one male copulating with most females- this is called reproductive skew and decreases the effective population size- increasing the change in allele frequency due to drift
what an ideal population what is the relationship between Ne and Nc?
the effective population size should equal the census population size
when is fixation time maximised?what happens when this isn’t the case?
when p=0.5, when this isn’t the case fixation of the dominant allele occurs a lot quicker
what are three ways that genetic diversity can be described?
within individuals, between individuals and between populations
what does alpha, theta and F all represent?
coancestry between populations, within populations and the inbreeding coefficient
how can Fis be used to make inferences about a populations mating system?
Fis shows whether heterozygosity is less or more than expected.
inbreeding or outbreeding
- if Fis is greater that 0 then homozygosity is greater than expected.
a negative value= outbreeding
what does Fst show?
- is Fst=0 then the two sub populations are homogenous however if Fst =1 then there has been complete differentiation. shows whether individuals are more similar within subpoplulatins that between subpopulations- if so then differentiation has occurred. can show whether a population is undergoing differentiation and has therefore undergone migration or isolation etc