The chapter delves into various mechanisms and concepts in population genetics and evolutionary biology. It explores directional selection, a natural force driving populations towards one end of a trait spectrum, and sexual selection, which involves changes in males and females to enhance mate acquisition.
adaptive changes in males and females that lead to and increased ability to secure a mate.
Disruptive Selection
escribes changes in population genetics in which extreme values for a trait are favored over intermediate values
Directional Selection
a force in nature that causes a population to evolve towards one end of a trait spectrum
Stabalizing Selection
a type of natural selection in which the population mean stabilizes on a particular non-extreme trait value
Polygentic
relating to or determined by polygenes
Assortative mating
individuals with similar phenotypes mate with one another more frequently than would be expected under a random mating pattern
Nonrandom Mating
when the probability that two individuals in a population will mate is not the same for all possible pairs of individuals
Inbreeding
mating between relatives, because after a few generations only a few, if any, unrelated mates are available
Founder Effect
similar to a bottleneck effect except that genetic variation is lost when a few individuals break away from a large population to found a new population
Bottleneck Effect
a special type of genetic drift where the loss of genetic diversity is from natural disasters
Genetic Drift
variation in the relative frequency of different genotypes in a small population, owing to the chance disappearance of particular genes as individuals die or do not reproduce
Reproductive Isolation
incapable of inheriting
Gene Flow
the movement of alleles between populations
Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium
a stable, non-evolving state
Allele Frequency
the proportion of each allele in a populations gene pool
Gene Pool
the alleles of all genes in all individuals in a population
Population Genetics
the field of biology that studies the diversity of populations at the level of gene.
Microevolution
evolutionary change within a species or small group of organisms, especially over a short period
Population
a group of organisms of a single species living together in the same geographical area