Processes Causing Deviations from the Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium

2. Genetic Drift




Population Genetics -- Evolution homepage -- BIO 311D homepage

Genetic Drift: random changes in allele frequencies in a population from generation to generation.



Fact: genetic drift results from sampling error in a population with limitied size.







founder effect: random changes in allele frequencies in a population during colonization.

Fact: founder effect occurs within the same generation.





bottleneck effect: random changes in allele frequencies in a population due to dramatic reduction of population size.

Fact: Reduction in size is caused either by some catastrophic events (density- independent factors) or only the frequencies of those loci are considered that are not under selection.



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