2026/04/07 by Lucrezia Laccetti · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · #Animal Behavior and Reproduction #Balancing selection #Evolution and Genetic Dynamics #Genetic diversity and population structure #Genetic drift #Genetic load #Genetic variation #Natural selection #Selection (genetic algorithm) #Variance (accounting) #Variation (astronomy)
paper · doi:10.1093/evolut/qpag057
openalex publication_date 2026/04/07 · openalex created_date 2026/04/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Why natural populations harbor high additive genetic variance for fitness remains an evolutionary puzzle. Connallon and Czuppon (2026) show that balancing selection, long considered irrelevant for additive variance at equilibrium, can maintain substantial fitness variance when realistic features such as genetic drift and environmental fluctuations are considered. Their models demonstrate that even a small number of balanced polymorphisms can rival thousands of loci at mutation-selection balance, reshaping how fitness variation is interpreted across taxa.