The original population of 200 was hit by a flash flood and 100 organisms were wiped out, leaving 16 homozygous recessive out of the 100 survivors. If all individuals were equally likely to be wiped out, what was the effect of the flash flood on the population distribution/equilibrium

Question

Rory Cannon

Biology

7 December, 04:00

The original population of 200 was hit by a flash flood and 100 organisms were wiped out, leaving 16 homozygous recessive out of the 100 survivors. If all individuals were equally likely to be wiped out, what was the effect of the flash flood on the population distribution/equilibrium

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Answers (1)

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Kian Lindsey · Answer 1

Genetic drift

Explanation:

Genetic drift is a change in genetic allele frequencies of a population. Bottleneck effect, caused by disasters such as in this case, causes genetic drift in a very rapid way hence reducing variability in a population. Reduced genetic variability in a small population is especially threatening because the chances of population surviving environmental changes get slimmer. This is because natural selection acts of genetic variability to get a population to adapt to changes in the environment.