Consequences of Selection in Lythrum salicaria

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Abstract
The author challenges the soundness of Fisher''s theory, based on mathematical calculations, that the linkage intensity between 2 lethal genes in Lythrum may gradually become greater through selective elimination of homo-zygotes. All known changes in linkage value depend on chromosome changes, such as translocation or inversion of a block of genes, deficiency, or gene mutation, and these are not of the cumulative type demanded by Fisher''s theory. Although linkage values could conceivably be changed by the modification of certain steps in meiosis, the meiotic mechanism is a conservative feature, and one is hardly warranted in treating linkage modification as an important factor in evolution.