While this is not in itself an evolutionary response, as environmental conditions continue to worsen, heterozygote advantage could help maintain genetic variation, potentially buying time to allow the species to respond via adaptation.
The Red Queen Hypothesis (RQH) predicts that coevolution between hosts and parasites acts to maintain genetic variation through time.
Mating system and gene flow are two mechanisms that allow a population of a species to maintain genetic variation.
Our goal for this exercise is to convey four general concepts (Figure 2a): (1) coevolution occurs rapidly; (2) that which is most fit now can become the least fit in just a few generations; (3) rare advantage, or negative frequency-dependent selection, can maintain genetic variation over time; and (4) we can use simple games to represent complex processes and to test hypotheses.
Environmental and wildlife protection groups such as Citizens for Los Angeles Wildlife have pushed Los Angeles to adopt the plan, saying it will help maintain genetic variation in urban species that might otherwise become isolated, and will reduce conflict with humans by preventing animals from being confined in residential neighborhoods.
Genetic variation in mate preferences may sometimes maintain genetic variation in signals, although the overall selection is usually still directional (but see [35]).
Here we aimed to test empirically two selection mechanisms: negative frequency-dependent selection and environmental heterogeneity (density-dependent selection), which are predicted to maintain genetic variation in natural populations [12] 18.
At least five selection mechanisms are hypothesized to maintain genetic variation in nature: mutation-selection balance, heterosis, antagonistic pleiotropy, negative frequency-dependent selection (advantage of rare genotype) and environmental heterogeneity [2], [7].
Temporally fluctuating selection could maintain genetic variation under particular conditions.
In this paper, we investigate the ability of maternal selection to maintain genetic variation.
