Fifty years of genetic load

Book · Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:5697435

Wallace, B

This book discusses the radiation effects on Drosophila. It was originally thought that irradiating Drosophila would decrease the average fitness of the population, thereby leading to information about the detrimental effects of mutations. Surprisingly, the fitness of the irradiated population turned out to be higher than that of the control population. The original motivation for the experiment was as a test of genetic load theory. The average fitness of a population is depressed by deleterious alleles held in the population by the balance between mutation and natural selection. The depression is called the genetic load of the population. The load dose not depend on the magnitude of the deleterious effect of alleles, but only on the mutation rate.

• OSTI ID: 5697435
• Resource Relation: Other Information: From review by John H. Gillespie (University of California, Davis (United States)), in Science, Vol. 254, No. 5034(15 Nov 1991)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTANT EFFECTS ON LIVING ORGS. AND BIOL. MAT.
DROSOPHILA
GENETIC RADIATION EFFECTS
GENE MUTATIONS
RADIOINDUCTION
BIOLOGICAL MODELS
ANIMALS
ARTHROPODS
BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS
BIOLOGICAL RADIATION EFFECTS
DIPTERA
FLIES
FRUIT FLIES
GENETIC EFFECTS
INSECTS
INVERTEBRATES
MUTATIONS
RADIATION EFFECTS
560152* - Radiation Effects on Animals- Animals