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Stabilizing Selection and “Balanced Combinations of Polygenes”

Abstract

IN a recent paper, Gibson and Thoday1 suggest that their analysis of an experiment with Drosophila populations submitted to long-term ‘disruptive’ and ‘stabilizing’ selection on the number of sternopleural chætæ confirms the ideas of Mather2–5 that stabilizing selection can generate what is called “balanced combinations of polygenes”. As Mather's theories and Gibson and Thoday's findings are important for our understanding of the maintenance of genetic variability in natural populations it seems worth while to make a closer comparison.

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References

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SCHARLOO, W. Stabilizing Selection and “Balanced Combinations of Polygenes”. Nature 200, 293–294 (1963). https://doi.org/10.1038/200293a0

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