Evolution: Shifting Balance Theory
Stephen J Tonsor, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Francisco B‐G Moore, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
Published online: April 2001
DOI: 10.1038/npg.els.0001781
Abstract
The shifting balance is an evolutionary process by which: 1) Drift and selection in small populations drive among‐population
epistatic differentiation. 2) The epistatic combinations differ in fitness, and their mean fitnesses are dependent on the
joint frequencies of the various epistatic combinations. 3) Epistatic differentiation among populations drives among‐population
selection when migration levels depend on population mean fitness. This leads to the replacement of the ancestral epistatic
combination throughout the metapopulation, under some circumstances.
Keywords: epistasis; adaptive topography; fitness surface; peak shift; random genetic drift
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