Question

What are bottleneck and founder effects?

Answer 1

Genetic drift:

1. Genetic drift is the random variation in the frequency of an existing gene variant in a population.
2. Gene variations may vanish altogether due to genetic drift, reducing genetic variation.
3. Two types of genetic drift observed are the bottleneck and founder effects.

Bottleneck effect:

1. The bottleneck effect happens when the population number is dramatically decreased as a result of natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters.
2. The new population is made up of the organisms that were able to survive the disasters.
3. The new population's allele frequency will be radically different from the original allele frequency.

Founder effect:

1. When a tiny population separates from a larger population and starts a new colony, this is known as the founder effect.
2. The frequency of alleles in each group is different.