Population Structure

Michael J Wade, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA

Published online: May 2001

DOI: 10.1038/npg.els.0001770

The ecological processes of extinction, colonization and migration in metapopulations gives rise to the unique evolutionary properties of structural populations.

Keywords: metapopulation; extinction; colonization; island model; migration; propagule pool; hierarchy; kin selection; group selection; social behaviour; epistasis

Figure 1. A diagrammatic representation of a metapopulation.
Figure 2. The relationship between the variation among demes in breeding numbers, N, and effective population size, Ne. (a) Metapopulation with variable N and Nav ~ 51. (b) Equivalent metapopulation with constant N ~ 14.
Figure 3. The distance travelled by a migrant under island model migration (a) is greater than under stepping stone model migration (b), where movement is restricted to nearby demes.
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 References
    Crow JF and Aoki K (1982) Group selection for a polygenic trait. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 79: 2628–2631.
    book Hanski I (1999) Metapopulation Ecology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    McCauley DE (1993) Evolution in metapopulations with frequent local extinction and recolonization. Oxford Surveys in Evolutionary Biology 9: 109–134.
    Wade MJ (1978) A critical review of the models of group selection. Quarterly Review of Biology 53: 101–114.
    Wade MJ (1985) Soft selection, hard selection, kin selection, and group selection. American Naturalist 125: 61–73.
    book Wade MJ (1996) "Adaptation in subdivided populations: kin selection and interdemic selection". In: Rose MR and Lauder G (eds) Evolutionary Biology and Adaptation, pp. 381–405. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates.
    book Wade MJ (2000) "Epistasis: genetic constraint within populations and accelerant of divergence among them". In: Wolf J, Brodie III E and Wade MJ (eds) Epistasis and the Evolutionary Process, pp. 213–233. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    book Wade MJ and Breden FJ (1987) "Kin selection in complex groups: mating structure, migration structure, and the evolution of social behaviors". In: Halperin Z and Chepko-Sade D (eds) Migration and Social Behavior, pp. 273–283. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
    Wade MJ and Goodnight CJ (1991) Wright's Shifting Balance Theory: an experimental study. Science 253: 1015–1018.
    Wade MJ and McCauley DE (1984) Group selection: the interaction of local deme size and migration on the differentiation of small populations. Evolution 38: 1047–1058.
    Whitlock MC (1992) Nonequilibrium population structure in forked fungus beetles: extinction, colonization, and the genetic variance among populations. American Naturalist 139: 952–970.
    Whitlock MC, Phillips PC and Wade MJ (1993) Gene interaction affects the additive genetic variance in subdivided populations with migration and extinction. Evolution 72: 1758–1769.
 Further Reading
    book Hanski I (1999) Metapopulation Ecology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Related Sub-Topics:

Population Structure and Genetics | Evolutionary Ecology | Population Ecology
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Article Title: Population Structure
 
How to Cite close
Wade, Michael J(May 2001) Population Structure. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1038/npg.els.0001770]