An experimental check of fitness entropy vs. selective delay

Abstract

A new macroparameter characterizing the movement of a non-equilibrium initial population structure toward the equilibrium structure under the natural selection process was suggested in a previous paper (Ginzburg, 1977). This parameter, named selective delay, is directly measurable from the population size growth curve without any knowledge of the frequencies of the different genotypes in the population. An equation was proposed describing the relationship between selective delay, average population fitness at the equilibrium point and the entropy distance between initial and equilibrium states of the population. The purpose of this paper is an experimental check of this equation. Experimental results with populations of flour beetle Tribolium castaneum segregating at the unsaturated fatty acid sensitive locus have shown a good correspondence to the theory.