Evolutionary genetics

Evolutionary genetics is the broad field of studies that attempts to account for evolution in terms of changes in gene and genotype frequencies within populations and the processes that convert the variation with populations into more or less permanent variation between species. It considers the effect of micro-evolutionary changes among populations due to evolutionary forces, which account for the emergence of macro-evolutionary patterns in the long term. A focus of evolutionary genetics is to describe how the evolutionary forces shape the patterns of biodiversity observed in nature.

This field of studies resulted from the integration — also known as "modern synthesis" or "evolutionary synthesis" — of genetics and Darwinian evolution. Notable individuals in the field include: Hardy, Weinberg, Tschetverikov, Ronald Fisher, Sewall Wright, J. B. S. Haldane, Julian Huxley, Theodosius Dobzhansky, and Hermann Joseph Muller,