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However, inbreeding also gives opportunity for genetic purging of deleterious alleles that otherwise would continue to exist in population and could potentially increase in frequency over time. Another possible negative effect of inbreeding is weakened immune system due to less diverse immunity alleles as a result of outbreeding depression. [6]
The Westermarck effect has gained some empirical support. [2] Proponents point to evidence from the Israeli kibbutz system, from the Chinese Shim-pua marriage customs, and from closely related families. In the case of the Israeli kibbutzim (collective farms), children were reared somewhat communally in peer groups, based on age, not biological ...
Genetic purging is the increased pressure of natural selection against deleterious alleles prompted by inbreeding. [1]Purging occurs because deleterious alleles tend to be recessive, which means that they only express all their harmful effects when they are present in the two copies of the individual (i.e., in homozygosis).
Inbreeding is also used to reveal deleterious recessive alleles, which can then be eliminated through assortative breeding or through culling. In plant breeding, inbred lines are used as stocks for the creation of hybrid lines to make use of the effects of heterosis. Inbreeding in plants also occurs naturally in the form of self-pollination.
Charles Darwin was one of the first scientists to demonstrate the effects of inbreeding depression, through numerous experiments on plants. Darwin's wife, Emma, was his first cousin, and he was concerned about the impact of inbreeding on his ten children, three of whom died at age ten or younger; three others had childless long-term marriages.
The fetal origins hypothesis (differentiated from the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease hypothesis, which emphasizes environmental conditions both before and immediately after birth) proposes that the period of gestation has significant impacts on the developmental health and wellbeing outcomes for an individual ranging from infancy to adulthood.
Health outcomes for adults born prematurely are the long-term health effects for people who were born preterm, defined as being birthed at a gestational age of less than 37 weeks. It can be associated with and is often studied in the same group as low birth weight , but they are not the same, as preterms can also be large for gestational age .
Inbreeding ordinarily has negative fitness consequences (inbreeding depression), and as a result species have evolved mechanisms to avoid inbreeding. Inbreeding depression is considered to be due largely to the expression of homozygous deleterious recessive mutations. [ 53 ]