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 characterised 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 ...
or
allele
An allele (, ; ; modern formation from Greek ἄλλος ''állos'', "other") is a variation of the same sequence of nucleotides at the same place on a long DNA molecule, as described in leading textbooks on genetics and evolution.
::"The chro ...
frequencies: if only 1% of a large sample of
moths 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 t ...
s of plants, where plants tend to be
pollinated by near neighbours, and
seed
A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiosper ...
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 angiosperm or gymnosperm, the growth of a sporeling from a spore, such as the spores of fungi, fer ...
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
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