6.2 discussion

    I used to only think about inbreeding when it applied to humans, and how this often lead to genetic diseases, but never thought about why this is so or the other affects it had. I now know that inbreeding affects the HWE, but not evolution. This is because inbreeding causes an excess of homozygotes and does not allow for the prediction of genotype frequencies from the allele frequencies. In humans, inbreeding causes genetic disorders that are often homozygous recessive diseases. Additionally, inbreeding may occur in species of animals that are endangered or are kept very close together. Plants self-fertilizing is very common as well, but this is not often seen as a negative thing.

    Some possible benefits of assortative mating may be the fixation of beneficial alleles in a population. In some cases, it may be more beneficial to be homozygous and inbreeding would avoid having an unsuccessful, heterozygous offspring.

    In each situation, it highly depends on the advantages and disadvantages of being homozygous or heterozygous. If a population were to interbreed and avoid all of the consequences like recessive homozygous diseases, then they may be successful in maintaining certain advantageous alleles within that group.