Genetic structure refers to any pattern in the genetic makeup of individuals within a population. Genetic structure allows for information about an individual to be inferred from other members of the same population. In trivial terms, all populations have genetic structure, because all populations can be characterized by their

genotype The genotype of an organism is its complete set of genetic material. Genotype can also be used to refer to the alleles or variants an individual carries in a particular gene or genetic location. The number of alleles an individual can have in a ...

allele An allele is a variant of the sequence of nucleotides at a particular location, or Locus (genetics), locus, on a DNA molecule. Alleles can differ at a single position through Single-nucleotide polymorphism, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), ...

frequencies: if only 1% of a large sample of

moths Moths are a group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies. They were previously classified as suborder Heterocera, but the group is paraphyletic with respect to butterflies (suborder Rhopalocera) a ...

drawn from a single population have spotted wings, then it is safe to assume that any unknown individual is unlikely to have spotted wings. A more complicated example arises in dense

thicket A thicket is a very dense stand of trees or tall shrubs, often dominated by only one or a few species, to the exclusion of all others. They may be formed by species that shed large numbers of highly viable seeds that are able to germinate in th ...

s of plants, where plants tend to be

pollinated Pollination is the transfer of pollen from an anther of a plant to the stigma of a plant, later enabling fertilisation and the production of seeds. Pollinating agents can be animals such as insects, for example bees, beetles or butterflies; bird ...

by near neighbours, and

seed In botany, a seed is a plant structure containing an embryo and stored nutrients in a protective coat called a ''testa''. More generally, the term "seed" means anything that can be Sowing, sown, which may include seed and husk or tuber. Seeds ...

s tend to fall and

germinate Germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or spore. The term is applied to the sprouting of a seedling from a seed of an flowering plant, angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the sp ...

near the maternal plant. In such a scenario, plants tend to be more closely related to nearby plants than they are to distant plants; and yet they are more likely to breed with nearby plants than they are with distant plants. Thus an inbreeding cycle is created that perpetuates the pattern of plants being closely related to near neighbors. This is a form of genetic structure because one can infer much about the genetic makeup of any individual plant simply by studying plants in their immediate neighborhoods.

References

Genetics {{genetics-stub