Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 112, Issue 6, Pages 1662-1669Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1423275112
Keywords
mutation; selection; genetic variability; Drosophila
Categories
Funding
- Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (UK)
- Leverhulme Trust
- National Institutes of Health
- National Science Foundation
- Natural Environment Research Council (UK)
- Royal Society
Ask authors/readers for more resources
DNA sequencing has revealed high levels of variability within most species. Statistical methods based on population genetics theory have been applied to the resulting data and suggest that most mutations affecting functionally important sequences are deleterious but subject to very weak selection. Quantitative genetic studies have provided information on the extent of genetic variation within populations in traits related to fitness and the rate at which variability in these traits arises by mutation. This paper attempts to combine the available information from applications of the two approaches to populations of the fruitfly Drosophila in order to estimate some important parameters of genetic variation, using a simple population genetics model of mutational effects on fitness components. Analyses based on this model suggest the existence of a class of mutations with much larger fitness effects than those inferred from sequence variability and that contribute most of the standing variation in fitness within a population caused by the input of mildly deleterious mutations. However, deleterious mutations explain only part of this standing variation, and other processes such as balancing selection appear to make a large contribution to genetic variation in fitness components in Drosophila.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available