Migration-Selection Balance
Imported practices from different competitive environments may be maladaptive in your context.
When populations inhabit different environments, local adaptation creates genetic differentiation. Migration between populations introduces maladaptive alleles - variants adaptive in the source environment but deleterious in the destination. This creates migration-selection balance: selection removes maladaptive migrant alleles while migration continuously reintroduces them. At equilibrium, the frequency of maladaptive alleles approximately equals m/s (migration rate divided by selection coefficient). If m > s, maladaptive alleles reach high frequency, preventing local adaptation. If s > m, local adaptation proceeds despite gene flow.
Business Application of Migration-Selection Balance
Imported practices from different competitive environments may be maladaptive in your context. Airbus processes evolved for mature A320 operations were maladaptive for the young A220 program. Managing migration-selection balance requires quarantining imported practices, testing in pilots, and actively selecting against clearly maladaptive imports.