Journal
G3-GENES GENOMES GENETICS
Volume -, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS INC
DOI: 10.1093/g3journal/jkad230
Keywords
natural selection; fluctuating environment; genetic drift; geometric mean fitness; effective fitness
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The natural environment fluctuates, affecting the fitness of organisms. The commonly used measure of geometric mean fitness may be misleading due to genetic drift. In this study, a new measure called effective fitness is proposed, which captures the overall effect of fluctuating selection more accurately by considering average expected allele frequency change caused by selection.
The natural environment fluctuates for virtually every population of organisms. As a result, the fitness of a mutant may vary temporally. While commonly used for summarizing the effect of fluctuating selection on the mutant, geometric mean fitness can be misleading under some circumstances due to the influence of genetic drift. Here, we show by mathematical proof and computer simulation that, with genetic drift, the geometric mean fitness does not accurately reflect the overall effect of fluctuating selection. We propose an alternative measure based on the average expected allele frequency change caused by selection and demonstrate that this measure-effective fitness-better captures the overall effect of fluctuating selection in the presence of drift.
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