Flashcards: Population genetics

Genetic diversity is the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species.

Genetic drift (also known as allelic drift or the Sewall Wright effect after biologist Sewall Wright) is the change in the frequency of a gene variant (allele) in a population due to random sampling of organisms.

Bryan Clifford Sykes (born 9 September 1947) is a Fellow of Wolfson College, and former Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford.

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza (born 25 January 1922) is an Italian population geneticist born in Genoa, who has been a professor at Stanford University since 1970 (now emeritus).

Sexual dimorphism is the condition where the two sexes of the same species exhibit different characteristics beyond the differences in their sexual organs.

The genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas primarily focuses on Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups and Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroups.

The study of the genetics and archaeogenetics of the ethnic groups of South Asia aims at uncovering these groups' genetic history.

The neutral theory of molecular evolution holds that at the molecular level most evolutionary changes and most of the variation within and between species is not caused by natural selection but by genetic drift of mutant alleles that are neutral.

Heritability is a statistic used in breeding and genetics works that estimates how much variation in a phenotypic trait in a population is due to genetic variation among individuals in that population.

Toomas Kivisild, (born on 11 August 1969 in Tapa, Estonia) is an Estonian geneticist.

A population bottleneck (or genetic bottleneck) is a sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental events (such as earthquakes, floods, fires, disease, or droughts) or human activities (such as genocide).

The axolotl (/ˈæksəlɒtəl/, from Classical Nahuatl: āxōlōtl [aː.ˈʃóː.loːtɬ]) also known as a Mexican salamander (Ambystoma mexicanum) or a Mexican walking fish, is a neotenic salamander, closely related to the tiger salamander.

Inbreeding is the production of offspring from the mating or breeding of individuals or organisms that are closely related genetically.

The genetic history of Europe is complicated because European populations have a complicated demographic history, including many successive periods of population growth.

Microevolution is the change in allele frequencies that occurs over time within a population.

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is the movement of genetic material between unicellular and/or multicellular organisms other than via vertical transmission (the transmission of DNA from parent to offspring.) HGT is synonymous with lateral gene transfer (LGT) and the terms are interchangeable.

In evolutionary ecology, an ecotype, sometimes called ecospecies, describes a genetically distinct geographic variety, population or race within a species, which is adapted to specific environmental conditions.

In biology a hybrid, also known as cross breed, is the result of mixing, through sexual reproduction, two animals or plants of different breeds, varieties, species or genera.

Life timelineview • discuss • -4500 —–-4000 —–-3500 —–-3000 —–-2500 —–-2000 —–-1500 —–-1000 —–-500 —–0 —waterSingle-celledlifephotosynthesisEukaryotesMulticellularlifeLand lifeDinosaurs MammalsFlowers ←Earliest Earth (-4540)←Earliest water←Earliest life(-4100)←LHB meteorites←Earliest oxygen←Atmospheric oxygen←Oxygen Crisis←Earliest sexual reproduction←Cambrian explosion←Earliest humansPhanrzcProterozoicArcheanHadeanAxis scale: millions of years.

The archaeogenetics of the Near East is the study of the genetics of past human populations (archaeogenetics) in the Ancient Near East using DNA from ancient remains.

The Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry, often called by its critics the "Khazar myth", is the hypothesis that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from the Khazars, a multi-ethnic conglomerate of Turkic peoples who formed a semi-nomadic Khanate in the area extending from Eastern Europe to Central Asia.

In population genetics, F-statistics (also known as fixation indices) describe the statistically expected level of heterozygosity in a population; more specifically the expected degree of (usually) a reduction in heterozygosity when compared to Hardy–Weinberg expectation.

Species distribution is the manner in which a biological taxon is spatially arranged.

Genetic erosion is a process whereby an already limited gene pool of an endangered species of plant or animal diminishes even more when individuals from the surviving population die off without getting a chance to meet and breed with others in their endangered low population.

A unit of selection is a biological entity within the hierarchy of biological organization (for example, an entity such as: a self-reproducing molecule, a gene, a cell, an organism, a group, or a species) that is subject to natural selection.