GENETIC-POLYMORPHISM IN A TEMPORALLY VARYING ENVIRONMENT - EFFECTS OFDELAYED GERMINATION OR DIAPAUSE

Temporal variation in the environment is generally thought to be less efficient in maintaining genetic polymorphism than spatial variation. However, if there is delayed germination or diapause, in some situatio ns the conditions for genetic polymorphism are greatly broadened in a temporally variable environment. For a model with absolute dominance w hich means that there can be no type of heterozygous advantage, the up per bound is no longer the geometric mean and the lower bound may not be the arithmetic mean of the fitnesses over environments. In some sit uations, there is an unstable equilibrium present as well as the stabl e equilibrium.