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The Journal of Heredity 1987:78(3):134-142
© 1987 The American Genetic Association 78:134-142

research-article

Fifty years of genetic load

Bruce Wallace

Abstract

The author's involvement with and his successive reactions to the genetic load concept [whose beginning is identified with Haldane's paper, The effect of variation on fitness] is presented in the form of a personal odyssey. The major change in attitude involved the realization that the density-and frequency-independent selection discussed by most population geneticists has little bearing on events transpiring within natural populations; instead, natural selection should be viewed primarily as a density- and frequency-dependent phenomenon. Under this view, the culling of a large number of young zygotes to the considerably smaller number of adults that can be sustained by the environment is an essential process enabling any population's continued existence; to the extent that genetic variation facilitates culling, a genetic load (in direct opposition to the early view) can enhance a population's persistence through time.


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