Table of Contents
What is overdominance hypothesis of heterosis?
The overdominance hypothesis attributes the heterozygote advantage to the survival of many alleles that are recessive and harmful in homozygotes. It attributes the poor performance of inbred strains to a high percentage of these harmful recessives.
What is overdominance and examples?
In overdominance, the heterozygote produced by two homozygote parents shows a phenotype that is more pronounced than that of the parents. Overdominance may also mean that the heterozygote has a higher fitness relative to the counterpart homozygotes. An example of this is a heterozygote for sickle cell anemia.
What is overdominance gene action?
Overdominance is a condition in genetics where the phenotype of the heterozygote lies outside the phenotypical range of both homozygous parents. Overdominance can also be described as heterozygote advantage, wherein heterozygous individuals have a higher fitness than homozygous individuals.
How does overdominance affect evolution?
This situation, known as heterosis or overdominance, leads to the stable coexistence of both alleles in the population and hence contributes to the widespread genetic variation found in populations of most organisms.
How does overdominance occur?
Overdominance. In some instances, offspring can demonstrate a phenotype that is outside the range defined by both parents. In particular, the phenomenon known as overdominance occurs when a heterozygote has a more extreme phenotype than that of either of its parents.
What is meant by overdominance?
Definition of overdominance : the condition wherein a heterozygote produces a phenotype more extreme or better adapted than that of the homozygote.
Does overdominance decrease genetic diversity?
More genetic diversity was retained in areas of low recombination, suggesting that associative overdominance, driven by disfavoured homozygosity of recessive deleterious alleles, is responsible for the maintenance of genetic diversity in smaller populations.
Why does overdominance happen?
Overdominance. Overdominance occurs when fitness of the heterozygote is superior to that of either homozygote. The result is that both alleles are maintained in the population at an equilibrium frequency ( , read “q hat”, where q = 0) that maximizes fitness.
Does overdominance always lead to heterozygote advantage?
The specific case of heterozygote advantage due to a single locus is known as overdominance. Overdominance is a condition in genetics where the phenotype of the heterozygote lies outside of the phenotypical range of both homozygote parents, and heterozygous individuals have a higher fitness than homozygous individuals.
How do you determine overdominance?
How does overdominance maintain genetic variation?
Overdominance maintains both alleles in the population to achieve the maximum overall fitness for a population (Figure 23). The equilibrium frequencies depend on the values of the selection coefficients, s and t, regardless of the initial allele frequencies. The equilibrium at this point is stable.
Does overdominance maintain genetic variation?
One of the classic ways to maintain genetic variation with a population is “overdominance,” in short, a state where heterozygotes exhibit greater fitness than the homozygote genotypes.
What is the overdominance hypothesis?
J.F. Crow, in Encyclopedia of Genetics, 2001. The overdominance hypothesis was immediately criticized for the absence of convincing examples of gene loci at which the heterozygote was superior to either homozygote. The dominance hypothesis relied on the common observation of a correlation between recessiveness and deleterious effect.
What is the dominance hypothesis of heterosis?
The dominance hypothesis attributes heterosis to canceling of deleterious or inferior recessive alleles contributed by one parent, by beneficial or superior dominant alleles contributed by the other parent in the heterozygous genotypes at different loci ( D avenport 1908; B ruce 1910; J ones 1917 ).
How does dominance affect the fitness of heterozygous offspring?
If overdominance is the main cause for the fitness advantages of heterosis, then there should be an over-expression of certain genes in the heterozygous offspring compared to the homozygous parents. On the other hand, if dominance is the cause, fewer genes should be under-expressed in the heterozygous offspring compared to the parents.
What is the theory of heterosis in dogs?
Heterosis is a theory in which the phenomenon of crossing two inbred lines can produce descendants with superior genetic foundation. In addition to the absence of inbreeding depressing, present in inbreed and purebred dogs in general, there is some remote inbreeding in any breed.