Genetic diversity Flashcards
What is genetic diversity?
The number of different alleles in a species or population.
What 3 things can reduce the number of alleles in a population?
Selective breeding
genetic bottlenecks
founder effect.
What is selective breeding, otherwise known as artificial selection? How does it reduce the number of alleles in a population?
When humans select an animal or plant with the desired characteristic and breed these so that the desired genes/characteristics can be kept in the population.
Selective breeding reduces the number of alleles in a population as their is little variation between each plant/animal.
What is genetic bottlenecks? How does it reduce the number of alleles in a population?
A population has suffered a sudden and significant drop in numbers. Possibly due to a catastrophic environmental event.
The surviving organisms reproduce increasing the population.
There is a reduced number of alleles because many of the different alleles died when the population did. They’re no longer present in the new population.
What is the founder effect? How does it reduce the number of alleles in a population?
When a few individuals relocate/colonize an a region. The alleles of these people may not be representative of the population from where they originally come from.
The people may reproduce within their community, reducing number of alleles. Their children will initially show little variation.
