Mathematical Contributions to Population Genetics

Abstract

Population genetics is rather unusual in biology in that, almost from inception, mathematical theories have played a vital role in its development. Although, early mathematical contributions to the field go back to Hard (1908) and Weinberg (1908) or even earlier, systematic treatments of gene-frequency changes within populations only began with a series of papers by Haldane (1924 and later). His methods of treatment are deterministic in that random fluctuations are disregarded. However, because of their handiness and because they lead to realistic answers to many problems, the methods have been used, and are still widely being used.