On the Number of Self-Incompatibility Alleles Maintained in Equilibrium by a Given Mutation Rate in a Population of Given Size: A Reexamination

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Abstract
Numerical estimates were made in 1939 (Genetics 24:538-552) with special reference to S. Emerson''s observations of Oenothera organensis, a species which he estimated to consist of less than 1000 individuals and very likely less than 500. R. A. Fisher (1958, "The genetical theory bf natural selection" 2nd revised edition) has criticized the above analysis and obtained very different results. Fisher''s exact (in place of an approximate) formula for the sampling variance of gene frequencies is accepted but shown to make no appreciable difference in the numerical results. All other formula are reexamined. The major differences in Fisher''s results are shown to depend on his use of several inadequate approximation formulae, amplified in the most impressive case by a misplaced decimal point. Some minor improvements are made in the 1939 formulae. These do not affect the essential correctness of the 1939 numerical results.

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