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. 1979 Mar;91(3):609–626. doi: 10.1093/genetics/91.3.609

Population Dynamics of Sex-Determining Alleles in Honey Bees and Self-Incompatibility Alleles in Plants

Shozo Yokoyama 1, Masatoshi Nei 1
PMCID: PMC1216853  PMID: 17248901

Abstract

Mathematical theories of the population dynamics of sex-determining alleles in honey bees are developed. It is shown that in an infinitely large population the equilibrium frequency of a sex allele is 1/n, where n is the number of alleles in the population, and the asymptotic rate of approach to this equilibrium is 2/(3n) per generation. Formulae for the distribution of allele frequencies and the effective and actual numbers of alleles that can be maintained in a finite population are derived by taking into account the population size and mutation rate. It is shown that the allele frequencies in a finite population may deviate considerably from 1/n. Using these results, available data on the number of sex alleles in honey bee populations are discussed. It is also shown that the number of self-incompatibility alleles in plants can be studied in a much simpler way by the method used in this paper. A brief discussion about general overdominant selection is presented.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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