Selection and gene flow: Populations of mice on the beach may live in close prox

Question

Selection and gene flow: Populations of mice on the beach may live in close proximity to those living in dark soil substrates. If those populations exchange genes, we may have what is known as a cline (a gradient in phenotype or genotype frequencies). When populations at either end are more or less fixed for different variants, there will be an intergrade or hybrid zone of mixed frequency with a width inversely proportional to selection acting on the trait (Width Dispersal distance/selection). Imagine the predator community changes, and the relative fitness for the less fit genotype at the RC locus increases from 0.5 to 0.9. What happens to the width of the intergrade zone for alleles at that locus?

Explanation / Answer

The width of the intergrade zone for alleles at that locus increases with the dispersal distance. In this case dispersal distance is directly proportion to the locus of the alleles, as the RC locus increased form 0.5 to 0.9, the chances of recombination is high and the width of the integrade zone increases. That means genotypes of the parents donot meet in the zone and are widely dispersed where their ancestors belong. Clines will occupy the same postion but with different width.

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