Abstract
In a number of populations of semi-commensal housemice in England and Wales, the older individuals are on the average larger and more variable in molar width than the younger individuals of the same populations. Several environmental variables have been shown to be unimportant with respect to these within-population differences, and it therefore seems likely that the differences in this age-invariant character are due to directional and destabilizing natural selection.
The mean selection intensity is about 0.21 on the variance and about 0.09 on the mean. There is heterogeneity among populations, but not between sexes, in this selection; the amount of selection on at least the mean is related to the kind of food eaten. This selection is absent on an island off Wales, but there a discrete dental polymorphism present in 1957 was lost after a severe reduction in population size in 1959.
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Van Valen, L. Selection in natural populations. IV. British housemice (Mus musculus). Genetica 36, 119–134 (1965). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01557148
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01557148