Summary
It has been demonstrated that a well-defined population ofDermestes vulpinus, consisting of a few thousand members caught from a pile of sheepskins was mating at random, by means of testing the ratio of homozygous to heterozygous animals for a wing and a body-colour factor, for which the species is polymorphic.
Mice inbred from a population in a Scottish coal-mine, comprising the types yellow-belly and grey-belly, revealed an unexpected lack of heterozygotes. It was concluded that the mice were not mating at random, but break up into comparatively small mating units. This was corroborated by the fact that mice tested for heterozygosis for hidden recessives failed to segregate for any.
From Dubinin’s data it was concluded that there is no evidence for inbreeding inDrosophila melanogaster.
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Philip, U. Mating systems in wild populations ofDermestes vulpinus andMus musculus . Journ. of Genetics 36, 197–211 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02982414
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02982414