Title: meiotic drive
Long Title: IUPAC Gold Book - meiotic drive
DOI: 10.1351/goldbook.14842
Status: current

Definition
Any process that causes some alleles to be over-represented in the gametes which are formed during meiosis.

Note
With normal Mendelian segregation at a genetic locus, on average half of an organism’s offspring inherit one of the alleles and the other half the other allele. This term refers to rare cases in which Mendel’s laws are broken, and one of the alleles is consistently found in more than half the offspring.

Source
- PAC, 2009, 81, 829. 'Glossary of terms used in ecotoxicology (IUPAC Recommendations 2009)' on page 913 (https://doi.org/10.1351/PAC-REC-08-07-09)

Other Outputs
- html: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/14842/html
- json: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/14842/json
- xml: https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/14842/xml

Citation: Citation: 'meiotic drive' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.14842
License: The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms.
Collection: If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .
Disclaimer: The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.
Accessed: 2026-05-20T13:28:25+00:00