Skip to main content

Tracing a Population's Adaptive Evolution from Mutation Through Fixation

This video presents the same text shown beside it, spoken and on screen. It adds nothing the text does not say.

State

This capstone traces one population's adaptive evolution from a single new mutation, through the population-genetic forces that can change its frequency, to its possible fixation as directional selection favors it.

Watch for

A new mutation's early survival depends heavily on genetic drift regardless of its eventual fitness effect — a beneficial mutation can still be lost by chance before selection ever gets the chance to act on its advantage.