Selection in Natural Populations

In 1974, Richard Lewontin published The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change, focusing enormous attention on protein variation as both a model of underlying genetic variation and a level of selection itself. In the twenty years since, scientific research has been shifted by the power of molecular biological techniques to explore the nature of variation directly at the DNA and gene levels. The "protein chapter" is coming to a close. In this book, Jeff Mitton explains the questions that genetic…