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On the correlation between heterozygosity and fitness in natural populations

Hansson, Bengt LU orcid and Westerberg, L (2002) In Molecular Ecology 11(12). p.2467-2474
Abstract
Three primary hypotheses currently prevail for correlations between heterozygosity at a set of molecular markers and fitness in natural populations. First, multilocus heterozygosity- fitness correlations might result from selection acting directly on the scored loci, such as at particular allozyme loci. Second, significant levels of linkage disequilibrium, as in recently bottlenecked-and-expanded populations, might cause associations between the markers and fitness loci in the local chromosomal vicinity. Third, in partially inbred populations, heterozygosity at the markers might reflect variation in the inbreeding coefficient and might associate with fitness as a result of effects of homozygosity at genome-wide distributed loci. Despite... (More)
Three primary hypotheses currently prevail for correlations between heterozygosity at a set of molecular markers and fitness in natural populations. First, multilocus heterozygosity- fitness correlations might result from selection acting directly on the scored loci, such as at particular allozyme loci. Second, significant levels of linkage disequilibrium, as in recently bottlenecked-and-expanded populations, might cause associations between the markers and fitness loci in the local chromosomal vicinity. Third, in partially inbred populations, heterozygosity at the markers might reflect variation in the inbreeding coefficient and might associate with fitness as a result of effects of homozygosity at genome-wide distributed loci. Despite years of research, the relative importance of these hypotheses remains unclear. The screening of heterozygosity at polymorphic DNA markers offers an opportunity to resolve this issue, and relevant empirical studies have now emerged. We provide an account of the recent progress on the subject, and give suggestions on how to distinguish between the three hypotheses in future studies. (Less)
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author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Molecular Ecology
volume
11
issue
12
pages
2467 - 2474
publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
external identifiers
  • pmid:12453232
  • wos:000179492800002
  • scopus:0036900207
ISSN
0962-1083
DOI
10.1046/j.1365-294X.2002.01644.x
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
a1a3f34b-24a1-48af-ac95-f9d760e9931e (old id 145461)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 11:46:14
date last changed
2022-04-28 19:49:56
@article{a1a3f34b-24a1-48af-ac95-f9d760e9931e,
  abstract     = {{Three primary hypotheses currently prevail for correlations between heterozygosity at a set of molecular markers and fitness in natural populations. First, multilocus heterozygosity- fitness correlations might result from selection acting directly on the scored loci, such as at particular allozyme loci. Second, significant levels of linkage disequilibrium, as in recently bottlenecked-and-expanded populations, might cause associations between the markers and fitness loci in the local chromosomal vicinity. Third, in partially inbred populations, heterozygosity at the markers might reflect variation in the inbreeding coefficient and might associate with fitness as a result of effects of homozygosity at genome-wide distributed loci. Despite years of research, the relative importance of these hypotheses remains unclear. The screening of heterozygosity at polymorphic DNA markers offers an opportunity to resolve this issue, and relevant empirical studies have now emerged. We provide an account of the recent progress on the subject, and give suggestions on how to distinguish between the three hypotheses in future studies.}},
  author       = {{Hansson, Bengt and Westerberg, L}},
  issn         = {{0962-1083}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{12}},
  pages        = {{2467--2474}},
  publisher    = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
  series       = {{Molecular Ecology}},
  title        = {{On the correlation between heterozygosity and fitness in natural populations}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-294X.2002.01644.x}},
  doi          = {{10.1046/j.1365-294X.2002.01644.x}},
  volume       = {{11}},
  year         = {{2002}},
}