Patterns of Natural Selection

Introduction to Natural Selection

Natural selection posits that only a certain percentage of offspring born will survive to reproduce another generation. Individuals with certain genotypes will be more likely to survive, mate, and reproduce their genotypes in subsequent generations. Thus, natural selection acts upon individuals, whereas evolution occurs at the level of a population. There are [...]

Increasing Genetic Variation

Altering Existing Genetic Variation
Genetic Drift

Genetic drift is a change in in genetic variation due to chance changes in allele frequencies. For example, genetic drift may occur as a matter of luck; one phenotype may simply never meet a member of the opposite sex in order to mate and produce offspring. Genetic drift is not affected [...]

Population Genetics

Population geneticists primarily study allele and genotype frequencies. They use quantitative methods to analyze the frequency of alleles. For example, a population geneticist may study the frequency of certain patterns on the fur of wild cats, then will revisit the same population several generations later to find how the frequency of patterns has changed from [...]