Population genetics has long been a predictor for evolutionary application in any given population. The premise is simple enough, as it employs an algorithm to quantify and determine how and why adaptations and gene frequency occurs. There is, however, a problem to be dealt with, first addressed by JBS Haldane, a 19th century evolutionary biologist/geneticist. He introduced, mathematically, the maximum possible likelihood of human mutation rates. His studies were the first to calculate the finite number of possible allele frequencies caused by recurring mutations at a gene locus and introduced the idea of a "cost" function to natural selection.
While forming his thesis, he came to the revelation that there was a finite limit of possible beneficial mutations that later was coined as "The Haldane Dilemma." There exists a maximum of 1,667 beneficial substitutions over the past ten million years of the lineage that leads to modern man. The argument has been expounded by others who assert that substitutions into the population might be larger than a nucleotide. This includes insertion/deletion or inversion/duplication. Each of these count as a substitution, therefore the argument places a limit on the total number of substitutions. And this limitation has a profound impact on punctuated equilibrium, because this maximum number presents a problem for the pace at which evolution could occur.
"Several factors could reduce the 1,667 limit significantly. For example, according to Eldredge and Gould's evolutionary theory, punctuated equilibria, species are in statis at least 99% of the time, and Gould claimed punc-eq applies to human evolution. According to Gould (in his last book, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory) genetic change would typically cease during statis. If correct, this factor alone could reduce the Haldane limit by a factor of about 100, to a limit of 17 substitutions. I was the first to bring up this relationship between punc-eq and Haldane's Dilemma." -
Walter Remine
"I shall investigate the following case mathematically. A population is in equilibrium under selection and mutation. One or more genes are rare because their appearance by mutation is balanced by natural selection. A sudden change occurs in the environment, for example, pollution by smoke, a change of climate, the introduction of a new food source, predator, or pathogen, and above all migration to a new habitat. It will be shown later that the general conclusions are not affected if the change is slow. The species is less adapted to the new environment, and its reproductive capacity is lowered. It is gradually improved as a result of natural selection. But meanwhile, a number of deaths, or their equivalents in lowered fertility, have occurred." -JBS Haldane
What kind of effect, if any, does the "Cost theory" or "Haldanes Dilemma" present on population genetics?
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