Lewontin’s paradox of variation
E760892
Lewontin’s paradox of variation is an evolutionary genetics puzzle highlighting that genetic diversity within species varies far less than expected from differences in their population sizes.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Lewontin’s paradox of variation canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T8846010 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Lewontin’s paradox of variation Context triple: [Richard Lewontin, knownFor, Lewontin’s paradox of variation]
-
A.
Dobzhansky–Muller incompatibilities
Dobzhansky–Muller incompatibilities are genetic conflicts between interacting genes that evolve in separate populations, causing reduced fitness or sterility in their hybrids and thereby contributing to reproductive isolation and speciation.
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B.
Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection
Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection is a key principle in evolutionary biology stating that the rate of increase in fitness of a population is proportional to its genetic variance in fitness.
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C.
Haldane’s cost of selection
Haldane’s cost of selection is a population genetics concept quantifying the reproductive burden and time required for natural selection to replace one gene variant with a fitter alternative in a population.
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D.
Evolution in Mendelian Populations
"Evolution in Mendelian Populations" is a foundational 1931 paper by Sewall Wright that introduced key concepts of population genetics, including genetic drift, inbreeding, and the shifting balance theory of evolution.
-
E.
Genetics of the Evolutionary Process
Genetics of the Evolutionary Process is a seminal work in evolutionary biology that synthesizes genetic principles with natural selection to explain how evolutionary change occurs within and between populations.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Lewontin’s paradox of variation Target entity description: Lewontin’s paradox of variation is an evolutionary genetics puzzle highlighting that genetic diversity within species varies far less than expected from differences in their population sizes.
-
A.
Dobzhansky–Muller incompatibilities
Dobzhansky–Muller incompatibilities are genetic conflicts between interacting genes that evolve in separate populations, causing reduced fitness or sterility in their hybrids and thereby contributing to reproductive isolation and speciation.
-
B.
Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection
Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection is a key principle in evolutionary biology stating that the rate of increase in fitness of a population is proportional to its genetic variance in fitness.
-
C.
Haldane’s cost of selection
Haldane’s cost of selection is a population genetics concept quantifying the reproductive burden and time required for natural selection to replace one gene variant with a fitter alternative in a population.
-
D.
Evolution in Mendelian Populations
"Evolution in Mendelian Populations" is a foundational 1931 paper by Sewall Wright that introduced key concepts of population genetics, including genetic drift, inbreeding, and the shifting balance theory of evolution.
-
E.
Genetics of the Evolutionary Process
Genetics of the Evolutionary Process is a seminal work in evolutionary biology that synthesizes genetic principles with natural selection to explain how evolutionary change occurs within and between populations.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
evolutionary genetics concept
ⓘ
population genetics puzzle ⓘ |
| addresses |
limits on neutral genetic variation in large populations
ⓘ
mismatch between theory and empirical genetic diversity ⓘ why species with huge population sizes do not have proportionally higher diversity ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
animals
ⓘ
microorganisms ⓘ plants ⓘ |
| basedOn | neutral theory of molecular evolution NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| category |
evolutionary paradox
ⓘ
genetic diversity paradox ⓘ |
| concerns |
effective population size
ⓘ
neutral genetic variation ⓘ within-species genetic diversity ⓘ |
| context | comparative studies of genetic diversity across taxa ⓘ |
| describes | discrepancy between genetic diversity and population size ⓘ |
| field |
evolutionary biology
ⓘ
population genetics ⓘ |
| highlights |
genetic diversity varies less than expected across species
ⓘ
weak correlation between census population size and genetic diversity ⓘ |
| involves |
background selection
ⓘ
demographic history ⓘ genetic drift ⓘ heterozygosity ⓘ life-history traits ⓘ linked selection ⓘ mutation rate ⓘ nucleotide diversity ⓘ population bottlenecks ⓘ population expansions ⓘ population structure ⓘ recombination rate variation ⓘ recurrent selective sweeps ⓘ |
| motivates |
comparative population genomics across species
ⓘ
study of effective population size reduction ⓘ study of selection at linked sites ⓘ |
| namedAfter | Richard C. Lewontin NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| observedUsing |
DNA sequence polymorphism data
ⓘ
allozyme data ⓘ genome-wide polymorphism data ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
nearly neutral theory of molecular evolution
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
neutral theory of genetic diversity ⓘ paradox of variation in molecular evolution ⓘ |
| suggests |
census population size is a poor predictor of genetic diversity
ⓘ
effective population sizes are constrained across species ⓘ strong selection can reduce neutral diversity ⓘ |
| usedIn |
interpretation of genome-wide diversity patterns
ⓘ
testing models of selection and demography ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Lewontin’s paradox of variation Description of subject: Lewontin’s paradox of variation is an evolutionary genetics puzzle highlighting that genetic diversity within species varies far less than expected from differences in their population sizes.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.