A clarification of the Hardy-Weinberg law

Abstract

C. C. Li showed that Hardy-Weinberg proportions (HWP) can be maintained in a large population by nonrandom mating as well as random mating. In particular he gave the mating matrix for the symmetric case in the most general form possible. Thus Li showed that, once HWP are attained, the same proportions can be maintained by what he called pseudorandom mating. This article shows that, starting from any genotypic distribution at a single locus with two alleles, the same in each sex, HWP can be reached in one round of nonrandom mating with no change in allele frequency. In the model that demonstrates this fact, random mating is represented by a single point in a continuum of nonrandom possibilities. Copyright © 2006 by the Genetics Society of America.