A windstorm transports a few seeds of a plant species from Island A, where the species is abundant, to Island B, where prior to this event the plant species was not found. The environmental conditions on the two islands are very similar, but the islands are located far away from one another. Over time, a small population of this plant becomes established on Island B. A biologist samples plants on both islands and finds that allele frequencies on Island A differ substantially from allele frequencies on Island B at several genetic loci not known to affect survival or reproduction. Based on this information, the observed genetic changes mostly likely resulted from.

Question

Biology

Andrea Shields

21 February, 18:25

A windstorm transports a few seeds of a plant species from Island A, where the species is abundant, to Island B, where prior to this event the plant species was not found. The environmental conditions on the two islands are very similar, but the islands are located far away from one another. Over time, a small population of this plant becomes established on Island B. A biologist samples plants on both islands and finds that allele frequencies on Island A differ substantially from allele frequencies on Island B at several genetic loci not known to affect survival or reproduction. Based on this information, the observed genetic changes mostly likely resulted from.

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Zariah · Answer 1

Genetic drift

Explanation:

Genetic drifts is a change in the frequencies of alleles due to chance or at random. Therefore there is no environmental or survival influences.

There are two types. The founders effect caused when a small group migrates from a larger group and forms a new population causing a change in the genetic pool.

Bottleneck effect is caused by the sudden reduction of population due to environmental or human activities.

The observed genetic changes in the question were due to genetic drift.