Applications of selective neutrality tests to molecular ecology

Tests of Neutrality

Selective Neutrality

Many enzymes in intermediary metabolism manifest saturation kinetics in which flux is a concave function of enzyme activity and often of the MichaelisMenten form. The result is that, when natural selection favors increased enzyme activity so as to maximize flux, a point of diminishing returns will be attained in which any increase in flux results in a disproportionately small increase in fitnes...

SINEs of progress: Mobile element applications to molecular ecology.

Mobile elements represent a unique and under-utilized set of tools for molecular ecologists. They are essentially homoplasy-free characters with the ability to be genotyped in a simple and efficient manner. Interpretation of the data generated using mobile elements can be simple compared to other genetic markers. They exist in a wide variety of taxa and are useful over a wide selection of tempo...

Beyond Neutrality—Ecology Finds Its Niche

THE complexity of the process of carcinogenesis has led to the necessity of reducing as far as possible the factors involved in experimental carcinogenesis if there is to be any chance of elucidating the mechanisms at work. One obvious way of cutting down influences from outside the tissue undergoing carcinogenesis is to maintain it in tissue or organ culture for the appropriate period. Unfortu...

Statistical tests of neutrality of mutations.

Mutations in the genealogy of the sequences in a random sample from a population can be classified as external and internal. External mutations are mutations that occurred in the external branches and internal mutations are mutations that occurred in the internal branches of the genealogy. Under the assumption of selective neutrality, the expected number of external mutations is equal to theta ...