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36) Continuing Previous Lecture - Gene Flow

Gene flow can both increase and decrease the fitness of populations. It reduces genetic differences between populations over time by transferring alleles through the movement of individuals or gametes. While it can spread beneficial alleles like insecticide resistance, it can also spread unfavorable alleles that decrease an organism's fitness to its environment. Natural selection plays a key role in adaptive evolution by increasing the frequency of alleles that enhance survival and reproduction, allowing organisms to better match their environment over generations.

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189 views

36) Continuing Previous Lecture - Gene Flow

Gene flow can both increase and decrease the fitness of populations. It reduces genetic differences between populations over time by transferring alleles through the movement of individuals or gametes. While it can spread beneficial alleles like insecticide resistance, it can also spread unfavorable alleles that decrease an organism's fitness to its environment. Natural selection plays a key role in adaptive evolution by increasing the frequency of alleles that enhance survival and reproduction, allowing organisms to better match their environment over generations.

Uploaded by

Shane
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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36) Continuing previous lecture—

Gene Flow
• Gene flow consists of the movement of
alleles among populations
• Alleles can be transferred through the
movement of fertile individuals or gametes
(for example, pollen)
• Gene flow tends to reduce differences
between populations over time
• Gene flow is more likely than mutation to
alter allele frequencies directly
37) Gene Flow—cont.
• Gene flow can decrease the fitness of a
population
• See Fig. 23.12 (next slide)
38) Gene Flow—cont.
• In bent grass, alleles for copper tolerance are beneficial in
populations near copper mines, but harmful to populations in
other soils
• Windblown pollen moves these alleles between populations
• The movement of unfavorable alleles into a population results
in a decrease in fit between organism and environment
39) Gene Flow—cont.
• Gene flow can increase the fitness of a
population
• Insecticides have been used to target
mosquitoes that carry West Nile virus and
malaria
• Alleles have evolved in some populations
that confer insecticide resistance to these
mosquitoes
• The flow of insecticide resistance alleles
into a population can cause an increase in
fitness
40) A Closer Look at Natural Selection
• Only natural selection consistently results
in adaptive evolution
• Natural selection brings about adaptive
evolution by acting on an organism’s
phenotype
• From the range of variations available in a
population, natural selection increases
frequencies of certain genotypes, fitting
organisms to their environment over
generations
41) Fitness and Relative Fitness
• The phrases “struggle for existence” and
“survival of the fittest” are misleading as they
imply direct competition among individuals
• Reproductive success is generally more subtle
and depends on many factors
• Relative fitness is the contribution an
individual makes to the gene pool of the next
generation, relative to the contributions of
other individuals
• Selection favors certain genotypes by acting
on the phenotypes of certain organisms
42) Directional, Disruptive, and
Stabilizing Selection
• Three modes of selection:
1) Directional selection favors individuals at
one end of the phenotypic range
2) Disruptive selection favors individuals at
both extremes of the phenotypic range
3) Stabilizing selection favors intermediate
variants and acts against extreme phenotypes
• See Fig. 23.13 (next slide)
43) The 3 Modes of Selection
• Directional selection
favors individuals at
one end of the
phenotypic range
• Disruptive selection
favors individuals at
both extremes of the
phenotypic range
• Stabilizing selection
favors intermediate
variants and acts
against extreme
phenotypes
44) Reminder: Natural selection plays
a key role in adaptive evolution
• Natural selection
increases the
frequencies of alleles
that enhance survival
and reproduction
• Adaptive evolution
occurs as the match
between an organism
and its environment
increases
• Some examples of
adaptations (Fig. 23.14):
45) Adaptive evolution—cont.
• Because the environment can
change, adaptive evolution is a
continuous process
• Genetic drift and gene flow do not
consistently lead to adaptive evolution
as they can increase or decrease the
match between an organism and its
environment
46) Sexual selection
• Sexual selection
is natural selection
for mating success
• It can result in
sexual
dimorphism,
marked differences
between the sexes
in secondary
sexual
characteristics
47) Sexual selection—cont.
• Intrasexual selection is competition
among individuals of one sex (often
males) for mates of the opposite sex
• Intersexual selection, often called mate
choice, occurs when individuals of one sex
(usually females) are choosy in selecting
their mates
• Male showiness due to mate choice can
increase a male’s chances of attracting a
female, while decreasing his chances of
survival
48) More about mate selection
• The favored hypothesis as to how female
preferences evolve is that if a trait is
related to male health, both the male trait
and female preference for that trait should
be selected for
• This is called the good genes hypothesis
• see Fig. 23.16 showing the evidence for
female selection for “long call” males
49) The Preservation of
Genetic Variation

• Various mechanisms help to preserve


genetic variation in a population
• We will examine some of these
mechanisms, including diploidy, balanced
dimorphism, heterozygous advantage, etc.
50) Diploidy

• Diploidy maintains genetic variation in the


form of hidden recessive alleles
51) Balancing Selection

• Balancing selection occurs when natural


selection maintains stable frequencies of
two or more phenotypic forms in a
population
• Balancing selection leads to a state called
balanced polymorphism
52) Heterozygote Advantage
• Some individuals who are heterozygous at a
particular locus have greater fitness than
homozygotes
• This is called heterozygous advantage
• Natural selection will tend to maintain two or
more alleles at that locus
• The persistence of sickle-cell anemia is a classic
example of this, because it confers malaria
resistance in spite of distortion of erythrocytes
• See Fig. 23.17 (next slide)
53) Distribution of the sickle-cell allele
54) Frequency-Dependent Selection

• In frequency-dependent selection, the


fitness of any phenotype declines if it
becomes too common in the population
• Selection can favor whichever phenotype
is less common in a population
• Great example in the scale-eating fish;
Fig. 23.18 (next slide)
55) Example of frequency-dependent selection:
56) Neutral Variation
• Neutral variation is genetic variation that
appears to confer no selective advantage
• For example,
– Variation in noncoding regions of DNA
– Variation in proteins that have little effect on
protein function or reproductive fitness
57) Why Natural Selection Cannot
Fashion Perfect Organisms
1. Selection can act only on existing
variations
2. Evolution is limited by historical
constraints
3. Adaptations are often compromises (see
Fig. 23.19, next slide)
4. Chance, natural selection, and the
environment interact
58) An example of an evolutionary
compromise

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