near neutrality

Hartl DL & Taubes CH 1998 Towards a theory of evolutionary adaptation. Genetica 102/103:525-533.

• nothing is known about the distribution of selective effects of newly arising mutations
• the statement that 'most mutations are harmful' is of no help
• it is
• (1) incorrectly stated
• (2) possibly untrue

• the mutation-selection-drift model presented here is in the spirit of the simulation model of Bürger and Lande (1994)
• their simulations indicate that, whereas the effective number of loci influencing the trait may be quite large, the number of segregating alleles per locus is typically rather small
• a significant fraction of the loci may be monomorphic