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Balancing selection refers to a number of selective processes by which multiple alleles (different versions of a gene) are actively maintained in the gene pool of a population at frequencies larger than expected from genetic drift alone. Balancing selection is rare compared to purifying selection. [1]
Nevertheless, the concept is still widely used in evolutionary genetics, e.g. to explain the persistence of deleterious alleles as in the case of spinal muscular atrophy, [5] [4] or, in theoretical models, mutation-selection balance can appear in a variety of ways and has even been applied to beneficial mutations (i.e. balance between selective ...
A genetic polymorphism means that different forms of particular genes, and hence of the proteins that they produce, are co-existing within a species. Selectionists claimed that such polymorphisms are maintained by balancing selection, while neutralists view the variation of a protein as a transient phase of molecular evolution. [1]
Tajima's D is a population genetic test statistic created by and named after the Japanese researcher Fumio Tajima. [1] Tajima's D is computed as the difference between two measures of genetic diversity: the mean number of pairwise differences and the number of segregating sites, each scaled so that they are expected to be the same in a neutrally evolving population of constant size.
Genetic polymorphism is actively and steadily maintained in populations by natural selection, in contrast to transient polymorphisms where a form is progressively replaced by another. [15]: 6–7 By definition, genetic polymorphism relates to a balance or equilibrium between morphs. The mechanisms that conserve it are types of balancing selection.
In genetics, the K a /K s ratio, also known as ω or d N /d S ratio, [a] is used to estimate the balance between neutral mutations, purifying selection and beneficial mutations acting on a set of homologous protein-coding genes.
This can result in stabilising selection through the purging of deleterious genetic polymorphisms that arise through random mutations. [2] [3] Purging of deleterious alleles can be achieved on the population genetics level, with as little as a single point mutation being the unit of selection. In such a case, carriers of the harmful point ...
A test that suggests selection: Again suppose you have data as in the last example, only this time locus 2 has equal divergence to locus 1 and yet lower polymorphism in species B. In this case the rate of mutation in each locus is equal, so this can only be explained by a reduction in the effective population size Ne of species B, which is ...