How is genetic diversity distributed in natural populations?
There are genetic differences among individuals within most (but not all) populations of plants and animals. There are also differences among populations across the range of each species. In this section we review some basic patterns of how genetic diversity of species is distributed, or partitioned. 2a. Monomorphic and polymorphic alleles. By definition, individuals within a given species share some percentage of alleles; otherwise, they would not be considered members of the same species. This shared (or common) portion of the gene pool includes two basic classes of genes. Genes that are monomorphic (i.e., A = 1, where A is the number of alleles per locus) within a species are common to all populations, and indeed essentially to all individuals. (Technically, “monomorphic” genes are defined as those for which the frequency of the most common allele is > 99%; thus, some variation may be present even at these loci). The monomorphic proportion of the total genome varies among taxonomic
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