The Distribution of Gene Frequencies in Populations

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The effects of the various evolutionary factors can be reduced to common terms by considering the rates of change which they tend to bring about in the relative frequencies of alleles. Formulae are developed for the pressures due to recurrent mutation, cross breeding between a local population and the rest of the species, and selection, allowing in the last case for any degree of dominance or any type of interaction with other genes. Diverse pressures of this sort determine some point or points of equilibrium. Inbreeding causes random changes in gene frequency. This, in conjunction with the pressure toward equilibrium, determines a certain distribution of gene frequencies. A further development is the formula for the joint distribution of the frequencies of all genes involved in an interacting system. This in general defines a multidimensional surface with many peaks relative to the frequencies of sets of gene frequencies. The evolutionary implications are discussed briefly.

This publication has 6 references indexed in Scilit: