Gene Flow

'Gene flow' means the movement of genes. In some cases, small fragments of DNA may pass from one individual directly into the germline of another, perhaps transduced by a pathogenic virus or other vector, or deliberately via a human transgenic manipulation. However, this kind of gene flow, known as horizontal gene transfer, is rare. Most of the time, gene flow is caused by the movement or dispersal of whole organisms or genomes from one population to another. After entering a new population, immigrant genomes may become incorporated due to sexual reproduction or hybridization, and will be gradually broken up by recombination. 'Genotype flow' would therefore be a more logical term to indicate that the whole genome is moving at one time. The term 'gene flow' is used probably because of an implicit belief in abundant recombination, and because most theory is still based on simple single locus models: it does not mean that genes are transferred one at a time. The fact that gene flow is usually caused by genotype flow has important consequences for its measurement, as we shall see.