Genetics, adaptation, and invasion in harsh environments.

ABSTRACT: We analyze mathematical models to examine how the genetic basis of fitness affects the persistence of a population suddenly encountering a harsh environment where it would go extinct without evolution. The results are relevant for novel introductions and for an established population whose existence is threatened by a sudden change in the environment. The models span a range of genetic assumptions, including identical loci that contribute to absolute fitness, a two-locus quantitative genetic model with nonidentical loci, and a model with major and minor genes affecting a quantitative trait. We find as a general (though not universal) pattern that prospects for persistence narrow as more loci contribute to fitness, in effect because selection per locus is increasingly weakened with more loc

SUBMITTER: Gomulkiewicz R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3352474 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature