Consequences of Assortative Mating in Humans
Assortative mating refers to whereby individuals having same genotype mate with each other to produce offsprings’. This changes the genotypic and allelic frequencies in a given population. It is sometimes due to the frequent intra-sexual competition within a population. There are several consequence of assortative mating.
It results to homozygosity increase due to phase disequilibrium of gametes. Therefore, the gametes will have no differences. Another consequence is that the variance of the total population will also increase. Genetic effects in a given population are greatly influenced by the assortative mating degree.
In a population where assortative mating has occurred, unmasking the effects can be very difficult. This mating may be due to consideration of some traits over others in a population. For instance, humans will assortatively mate in regards to height and intelligence, but not according to their blood groups. There also exists different degrees of dominance and correlation coefficients in genes that are responsible for phenotypes.
Again, through natural selection, allelic frequency change will be enhanced by assortative mating. In some cases, it is beneficial to a population for species survival and adaptation. If there is a superior allelic combination, assortative mating will be maintained. Sympatric speciation is
also a result of this type of mating. Sympatric speciation is whereby gene pool division is not separated physically.
This mating also causes genetic change in a given population. However, this only happens after a very long period of time, usually millions of years. Effects of assortative mating prediction can be complicated as phenotypes depend on several interactions in genes and the environment.
