Polydactylism occurs _______.
According to the theory of island biogeography, those islands that are further isolated from the mainland and other islands would be expected to have _______.
How do natural disasters contribute to genetic drift?
Natural disasters can suddenly kill a large, random portion of a population. The survivors may have different allele frequencies from the original population just by chance, so genetic variation and allele frequencies can change through genetic drift.
After hunting by European settlers, the bison population of 60 million was reduced to _______ of its original size.
Which of the following has not resulted in the decline of cheetah populations?
Bottleneck events lead to _______.
Explain how the Amish are an example of the founder effect.
The Amish are an example of the founder effect because a small group of people founded their population, bringing only a limited sample of the original population’s genetic variation. By chance, certain alleles became more common among their descendants; for example, polydactylism occurs more frequently in some Amish communities.
Explain how a bottleneck event can enrich recessive traits in the genetics of a population.
A bottleneck randomly leaves only a few survivors, and those survivors may carry recessive alleles more often than the original population did. In the small population that follows, genetic drift can increase the frequency of those alleles, while inbreeding makes it more likely that individuals inherit two copies and show the recessive trait.
Explain why a population of Mouflon in the Indian Ocean descended from only two individual that had not experienced a loss of genetic diversity was so surprising to scientists.
Scientists expected a population descended from only two Mouflon to have undergone a strong founder effect, with much less genetic variation than the original population. It was surprising that the island population retained its genetic diversity despite having so few founders.
Explain why the crossbreeding of bison and cattle is both a benefit and hindrance to conservation efforts aimed at protecting bison genetic diversity.
Crossbreeding with cattle can add variation to a small bison population and may reduce problems associated with inbreeding. However, cattle genes can enter the bison gene pool and dilute its distinct genetic makeup, making it harder to preserve bison genetic diversity and the characteristics of pure bison.
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