Hill-Robertson effect

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The Hill-Robertson effect is an population genetics first identified by Bill Hill and Alan Robertson in 1966[1]. It describes an evolutionary advantage to genetic recombination.

In a finite population subject to natural selection and genetic recombination, genetic drift will create random instances of linkage disequilibrium. Some will be selectively advantageous, others will not. However, the creation of these slows down the progress of selection. Recombination breaks down the disequilibria, allowing selection to act independently on various loci.

Joe Felsenstein (1974)[2] showed this effect to be mathematically identical to the Fisher-Muller model proposed by R.A. Fisher (1930)[3] and H.J. Muller (1932)[4], although the verbal arguments were substantially different.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Hill, W. G., and A. Robertson, 1966 The effect of linkage on limits to artificial selection. Genetics Research. 8: 269–294.
  2. ^ Felsenstein, J. 1974 The Evolutionary Advantage of Recombination. Genetics 78: 737-756.
  3. ^ Fisher, R.A. 1930 The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
  4. ^ Muller, H.J. 1932 Some Genetic Aspects of Sex. American Naturalist 66: 118-138.
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