I’m doing a biology lab and am struggling with the subject of selectively neutral alleles.
Two questions I need help with:
What factors control the frequency of selectively neutral alleles?
Could evolution occur if all alleles were selectively neutral? Explain why or why not.
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What Factors Control The Frequency Of Selectively Neutral Alleles?
Posted on December 11, 2012.
When the expressed phenotype is neutral to selection a mutation can establish in the gene pool as a new allele because having one phenotype or another doesn’t affect the individual’s survival or reproductive success. Instead the neutral allele’s phenotype is selected by random fluctuations in allele frequencies due to accident & chance losses removing one allele more than another from the gene pool just like when the allele is not expressed to the phenotype.
No population could evolve if the entire phenotype was neutral to the environment’s selective pressures.
Evolution is simply the result of population’s with imperfect replication introducing variations in each generation. The numbers born are in excess of what the habitat can support so members compete for the limited resources. In general the result is a differential reproductive success by those with the most suitable collection of phenotypic traits that fit the niche.