Population Genetics
Published on 9. November 2011
Book
Paperback/Softback
160 pages
978-94-010-3357-2 (ISBN)
Description
Population genetics is the mathematical investigation of the changes in the genetic structure of populations brought about by selection, mutation, inbreeding, migration, and other phenomena, together with those random changes deriving from chance events. These changes are the basic components of evolutionary progress, and an understanding of their effect is therefore necessary for an informed discussion of the reasons for and nature of evolution. It would, however, be wrong to pretend that a mathematical theory, depending as it must on a large number of simplifying assump tions, should be accepted unreservedly and that its conclusions should be accepted uncritically. No-one would pretend that in the event of disagreement between observation and mathematical prediction, the discrepancy is due to anything other than the inadequacy of the mathematical treatment. The biological world is, of course, far too complex for the study of population genetics to be simply a branch of applied mathematics, so that while we are concerned here with the mathematical theory, I have tried to indicate which of our results should continue to apply in a context wider than that in which they are formally derived. The difficulties involved in the joint discussions of mathematical and genetical problems are obvious enough. I have tried to aim this book rather more at the mathematician than at the geneticist, and for this reason a brief glossary of common genetical terms is included.
More details
Series
Edition
Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1968
Language
English
Place of publication
Dordrecht
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Research
Illustrations
160 p.
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 9 mm
Weight
211 gr
ISBN-13
978-94-010-3357-2 (9789401033572)
DOI
10.1007/978-94-010-3355-8
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
W. J. Ewens
Population Genetics
Book
02/1969
Kluwer Academic Publishers
€109.13
Article exhausted; check different version
Content
1. The Hardy-Weinberg Law.- 1.1. The Hardy-Weinberg law.- 1.2. Random union of gametes.- 1.3. Dioecious populations.- 1.4. Sex-linked genes and multiple alleles.- 1.5. Miscellaneous results.- 1.6. The effect of selection.- 2. Selection and Mutation.- 2.1. Changes in gene frequency.- 2.2. The mean fitness of the population.- 2.3. The effect of mutation.- 2.4. Genetic loads.- 3. The Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection.- 3.1. Random-mating populations.- 3.2. Two allele, non-random-mating populations 24.- 3.3 Discussion.- 4. Stochastic Treatment; Discrete Processes.- 4.1. Wright's model.- 4.2. Generalizations: the effective population size.- 4.3. Bisexual populations.- 4.4. Cyclic population size.- 4.5. Geographical subdivision.- 4.6. General offspring distributions.- 4.7. The asymptotic conditional distribution and the transient function.- 4.8. Selection and mutation.- 5. Diffusion Approximations.- 5.1. The Fokker-Planck equation.- 5.2. The drift function.- 5.3. The asymptotic conditional distribution.- 5.4. The backward differential equation.- 6. Applications.- 6.1. Absorption probabilities.- 6.2. Mean absorption times.- 6.3. Stationary distributions.- 6.4. The maintenance of alleles by mutation.- 6.5. Self-sterility alleles.- 6.6. Comparison with formulae of Fisher.- 7. Results Derived from Branching Processes.- 7.1. Survival probabilities.- 7.2. Multiple alleles.- 7.3. Fluctuating environments.- 7.4. Selectively disadvantageous mutants.- 8. Two-locus Behaviour.- 8.1. Introduction.- 8.2. Changes in gamete frequency.- 8.3. The effect of selection.- 8.4. What is' interaction'?.- 9. Linkage.- 9.1. Equilibrium points and their stability behaviour.- 9.2. Increase in frequency of rare genes.- 9.3. Initial increase in two mutant genes.- 9.4. Sudden changes in meanfitness.- 9.5. Linkage and the genetic load.- 9.6. Linkage and the survival of a new mutant.- 10. Dominance.- 10.1. Dominance of the wild type.- 10.2. Primary genes which are initially rare.- 10.3. Dominance and the genetic load.- 11. Summary.- Author Index.