5/1/24 - Lecture 17: Population Genetics II: Mutation, Genetic Drift, and Gene Flow

Question 1

What do mutations do?

Answer 1

Generate new alleles but are very unlikely to happen. They can either be beneficial, deleterious, or neutral

Question 2

Genetic drift

Answer 2

Random changes in allele frequencies due to sampling error across generations, sampling error becomes stronger in smaller populations, where rarer alleles are more likely to be lost

Basically, there are changes in genotype frequencies due to random chance

Question 3

Founder’s effect

Answer 3

Genetic variation in the population will reflect that from the starting population

Question 4

Bottleneck

Answer 4

Genetic variation is reduced due to a dramatic drop in population size

Question 5

Gene flow & migration

Answer 5

Transfer of alleles through movement of fertile individuals or their gametes