Heterozygote Advantage

Definition

Heterozygote advantage, also known as overdominance, refers to a situation where individuals who are heterozygous for a particular gene have higher fitness compared to both homozygotes. This leads to the maintenance of multiple alleles in a population.

Related terms

Homozygote: A homozygote is an individual that carries two copies of the same allele for a specific gene.

Fitness:

Fitness refers to an organism's ability to survive and reproduce successfully in its environment.

Gene Pool:

The gene pool refers to all the genetic information (alleles) present in a population at any given time.