Sex, mixability, and modularity
Open Access
- 8 January 2010
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- Vol. 107 (4), 1452-1457
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0910734106
Abstract
The assumption that different genetic elements can make separate contributions to the same quantitative trait was originally made in order to reconcile biometry and Mendelism and ever since has been used in population genetics, specifically for the trait of fitness. Here we show that sex is responsible for the existence of separate genetic effects on fitness and, more generally, for the existence of a hierarchy of genetic evolutionary modules. Using the tools developed in the process, we also demonstrate that in terms of their fitness effects, separation and fusion of genes are associated with the increase and decrease of the recombination rate between them, respectively. Implications for sex and evolution theory are discussed.This publication has 14 references indexed in Scilit:
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