Underdominance

In genetics, underdominance, also known as homozygote advantage, heterozygote disadvantage, or negative overdominance," is the opposite of overdominance. It is the selection against the heterozygote, causing disruptive selection and divergent genotypes. Underdominance exists in situations where the heterozygotic genotype is inferior in fitness to either the dominant or recessive homozygotic genotype. Compared to examples of overdominance in actual populations, underdominance is considered more unstable and may lead to the fixation of either allele. An example of stable underdominance may occur in individuals who are heterozygotic for polymorphisms that would make them better suited for one of two niches. Consider a situation in which a population is completely homozygotic for an "A" allele, allowing exploitation of a particular resource. Eventually, a polymorphic "a" allele may be introduced into the population, resulting in an individual who is capable of exploiting a different resource. This would result in an "aa" homozygotic invasion of the population due to nonexistent competition of the unexploited resource. The frequency of "aa" individuals would increase until the abundance of the "a" resource begins to decline. Eventually, the "AA" and "aa" genotypes would reach equilibrium with each other, with "Aa" heterozygotic individuals potentially experiencing a reduced fitness compared to those individuals who are homozygotic for utilization of either resource. This example of underdominance is stable because any shift in equilibrium would result in selection for the rare allele due to increased resource abundance. This compensatory selection would ultimately return the dimorphic system to underdominant equilibrium. An example of stable underdominance can be found in the African butterfly species Pseudacraea eurytus, which utilizes Batesian mimicry to escape predation. This species possesses two alleles which each confer an appearance similar to that of another local butterfly species that is toxic to its predator.