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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1971 May;68(5):984–986. doi: 10.1073/pnas.68.5.984

The Effect of Genetic Linkage on the Mean Fitness of a Population

R C Lewontin 1
PMCID: PMC389096  PMID: 5280533

Abstract

If many gene loci are kept in a segregating state by natural selection, the equilibrium frequencies of the genotypes in the population may be a function of the amount of recombination among the genes. It is shown that if the equilibrium vector of gametic frequencies is a continuous function of the set of recombination frequencies among genes, then the mean fitness of the population at equilibrium is a maximum in the absence of recombination. Thus, in general, restriction of recombination increases fitness.

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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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