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In population genetics, a fixed allele is an allele that is the only variant that exists for that gene in a population. A fixed allele is homozygous for all members of the population. [1] The process by which alleles become fixed is called fixation. For this hypothetical species, the population in the topmost frame exhibits no fixed allele for ...
In the absence of mutation or heterozygote advantage, any allele must eventually either be lost completely from the population, or fixed, i.e. permanently established at 100% frequency in the population. [2] Whether a gene will ultimately be lost or fixed is dependent on selection coefficients and chance fluctuations in allelic proportions. [3]
Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and among populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology.Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and population structure.
The general selection model (GSM) is a model of population genetics that describes how a population's allele frequencies will change when acted upon by natural selection. [ 1 ] [ better source needed ]
The words homozygous, heterozygous, and hemizygous are used to describe the genotype of a diploid organism at a single locus on the DNA. Homozygous describes a genotype consisting of two identical alleles at a given locus, heterozygous describes a genotype consisting of two different alleles at a locus, hemizygous describes a genotype consisting of only a single copy of a particular gene in an ...
Once an allele becomes fixed, genetic drift comes to a halt, and the allele frequency cannot change unless a new allele is introduced in the population via mutation or gene flow. Thus even while genetic drift is a random, directionless process, it acts to eliminate genetic variation over time.
The allele that is linked to the adaptation will increase in frequency, in some cases until it becomes fixed in the population. The other allele, which is linked to the non-advantageous version, will decrease in frequency, in some cases until extinction. [5] [6] Overall, hitchhiking reduces the amount of genetic variation.
Coalescent theory is a model of how alleles sampled from a population may have originated from a common ancestor. In the simplest case, coalescent theory assumes no recombination , no natural selection , and no gene flow or population structure , meaning that each variant is equally likely to have been passed from one generation to the next.