Population genetics of Drosophila allozyme polymorphism in Indian populations of Drosophila ananassae

Abstract

A static life would not suit the ever-changing dynamic environment. Thus, change is the newlineessence of life. The diversity in the life forms seen has only come up because complete newlinehomogeneity would never be able to deal with a dynamic environment. So each individual differ newlinefrom the other its degree varying, and this forms a basis for classification in systematics. newlineThe genome is the entire collection of an organism s genetic material, which provides all the newlineinformation necessary for life. If there is no change in the genome of an organism, it would be newlinepassed identically to future generation, preserving past genetic structure. But only when genetic newlinevariability is present, processes such as selection, genetic drift, and migration can act to change newlinethe frequencies of genetic variants and in doing so, allow evolution that may lead to adaptation newlineand ultimately even speciation. Thus, understanding genetic variation- its origin, maintenance newlineand pattern of change are critical to understanding the diversity of life. The term polymorphism newlineis defined as the existence of two or more variants in a population of individuals, with at least newlineone of the variants having frequencies greater than 1 percent. Studying and comparing the newlinepattern of the genetic variation in natural populations have always been fascinating and newlineinteresting for evolutionary biologist for many years. For such studies, Drosophila has served newlinevery often as the preferred model among other organisms. Among several characters, the study newlineof the chromosomal and allozyme variation has provided most useful information. Among newlinequantitative traits those directly connected with fitness like viability, fertility, fecundity and other newlinewere found to be most interesting characters for evolutionary problems.