A species of lizard is found on the eastern and western sides of part of a mountain range. On both sides, individual populations are small. On the western side, individual populations are relatively close together and males move extensively among populations to breed. On the eastern side, however, populations are farther apart and males seldom move among more than one or two adjacent populations to breed. If you were to study the genetic diversity of western and eastern populations, which pattern would you expect to find?

Question

Lucia Durham

Biology

27 December, 03:56

A species of lizard is found on the eastern and western sides of part of a mountain range. On both sides, individual populations are small. On the western side, individual populations are relatively close together and males move extensively among populations to breed. On the eastern side, however, populations are farther apart and males seldom move among more than one or two adjacent populations to breed. If you were to study the genetic diversity of western and eastern populations, which pattern would you expect to find?

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Jeffrey Lee · Answer 1

A species of lizard is found on the eastern and western sides of part of a mountain range. On both sides, individual populations are small. On the western side, individual populations are relatively close together and males move extensively among populations to breed. On the eastern side, however, populations are farther apart and males seldom move among more than one or two adjacent populations to breed. If you were to study the genetic diversity of western and eastern populations, which pattern would you expect to find?

Each western population would be genetically diverse, although the allele frequencies might differ from one population to the next. Eastern populations would be less diverse, and some populations will have only a limited number of the total alleles available in the species.