Maintenance in Populations
A variety of factors maintain genetic variation in populations. Potentially harmful recessive alleles can be hidden from selection in the heterozygous individuals in populations of diploid organisms (recessive alleles are only expressed in the less common homozygous individuals). Natural selection can also maintain genetic variation in balanced polymorphisms. Balanced polymorphisms may occur when heterozygotes are favored or when selection is frequency dependent.
Read more about this topic: Genetic Variation
Famous quotes containing the words maintenance and/or populations:
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“The populations of Pwllheli, Criccieth,
Portmadoc, Borth, Tremadoc, Penrhyndeudraeth,
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First in good Welsh and then in fluent English,”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)