Are heritability and selection related to population size in nature? Meta‐analysis and conservation implications

It is widely thought that small populations should have less additive genetic variance and respond less efficiently to natural selection than large populations. Across taxa, we meta-analytically quantified the relationship between adult census population size (N) and additive genetic variance (proxy: h (2)) and found no reduction in h (2) with decreasing N; surveyed populations ranged from four to one million individuals (1735 h (2) estimates,...