Theoretical models of the evolutionary genetics of adaptation

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

A major goal of evolutionary biology and ecology is to identify the determinants of biodiversity. Since Mendel, genetic inheritance has been identified as a fundamental determinant of biodiversity; inheritance provides the physical basis for Darwin's principle of descent with modification. Genetic inheritance is a genealogical process, whereby genes present in one generation are descents of genes that were present in past generations. Recently my colleagues and I discovered that the genealogical process determines, in part, the directions of morphological variation in a population. Previous models of the genetic basis of morphological variation overlooked genealogy, they had focused on mutation, allele frequencies and selection.