fossils and stuff

Question 1

What is genetic drift

Answer 1

Genetic drift is the random, non-directional change in allele frequency between generations and is not affected by whether an allele is harmful or beneficial, instead it is purely by chance

Unlikely to have significant effect on a large population but plays an important role role in evolution of small populations

Question 2

What is the founders effect

Answer 2

An extreme example of genetic drift

occurs when small group moves to a totally new area and establishes a population.
The founder population will have a small and non-representative sample of alleles from parent’s population’s gene pool
As a result of this, colonizing populations may evolve in a different direction than the parent population

Question 3

What is the bottleneck affect

Answer 3

Bottleneck effect is a sudden reduction in the population size due to a change in the environment

The resulting gene pool may no longer be reflective of the original population’s gene pool

Question 4

What is speciation

Answer 4

Speciation = the process of new species developing