BIOL 226 Lecture Notes - Stabilizing Selection, Panmixia, Frequency Distribution
29 Jan 2014
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Overview: the smallest unit of evolution: natural selection acts on individuals, but only populations evolve, the proportion of individuals with the favored traits in the population increase over generations, genetic variations in populations contribute to evolution. What did darwin"s theory lack: coherent theory of inheritance. Refuted: darwin had no alternative hypothesis. Gregor mendel proposed a model of inheritance that supported darwin"s theory. States that parents pass on discrete heritable units (genes) that retain their identities in offspring: mendel"s particulate hypothesis of inheritance, mendel"s work rediscovered in 1900"s, modern synthesis: Darwin + mendel will lead to population genetics. Some key terms: each chromosome carries units of heredity called genes, genes are paired because chr. are paired, genes occupying the same locus on a pair of chromosomes are termed alleles. If each member of the pair of alleles affects a given traits in the same manner, the two alleles are called homozygous: as opposed to heterozygous.
