title: Population genetics of gene function.
abstract: This paper shows that differentiating the lifetimes of two phenotypes independently from their fertility can lead to a qualitative change in the equilibrium of a population: since survival and reproduction are distinct functional aspects of an organism, this observation contributes to extend the population-genetical characterisation of biological function. To support this statement a mathematical relation is derived to link the lifetime ratio T₁/T₂, which parameterizes the different survival ability of two phenotypes, with population variables that quantify the amount of neutral variation underlying a population's phenotypic distribution.
authors.affiliation: ignacio@cantab.net
authors.forename: Ignacio
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Gallo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics; D005298:Fertility; D017344:Genes, Insect; D056726:Genetic Association Studies; D005828:Genetics, Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055641:Mathematical Concepts; D008957:Models, Genetic; D009154:Mutation; D013269:Stochastic Processes