The Input from Population Genetics: "The New Ecological Genetics"

Recently there has been a growing interaction of genetical and approaches to theoretical and natural populations. The relative ease with which plant populations can be studied demographi- cally and experimentally suggests that plants will play a major role in developing this interaction. Already such studies have lead to a that goes beyond earlier conceptualization of ge- netic differences among populations in the framework of experimental taxonomy. This new genetics has developed a series of tenets that emphasize the importance of considering genetic and factors in concert: 1) Explaining the abundance and distribution of organisms is basically the genetic problem of explaining limits to nat- ural selection. 2) An understanding of community structure will come from consideration of hbw forces maintaining species diversity and genetic diversity interact. 3) Adaptation is operationally definable in terms of mortality and fecundity of individuals in populations. 4) Adaptation to new environments results in different genotypes with different life histories. 5) The distinction between ecological time and evolutionary time is artificial and misleading.