Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection
In population genetics, Ronald Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection, forming a key element of his 1930 book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection was originally stated as:
- "The rate of increase in fitness of any organism at any time is equal to its genetic variance in fitness at that time."
- "The rate of increase in the mean fitness of any organism at any time ascribable to natural selection acting through changes in gene frequencies is exactly equal to its genic variance in fitness at that time". (Edwards 1994)
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The theorem was first proposed by Ronald Fisher in his important book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection. However, for forty years it was misunderstood, largely as a result of Fisher's feud with the American geneticist Sewall Wright primarily about adaptive landscapes. George R. Price reformulated the fundamental theorem using the Price equation in 1972.
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| Topics in population genetics |
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| Key concepts: Hardy-Weinberg law | Fisher's fundamental theorem | neutral theory |
| Selection: natural | sexual | artificial | ecological |
| Genetic drift: small population size | population bottleneck | founder effect |
| Founders: Ronald Fisher | J.B.S. Haldane | Sewall Wright |
| Related topics: evolution | microevolution | evolutionary game theory | fitness landscape |
| List of evolutionary biology topics |