Mechanisms of Evolution: genetic drift, bottlenecks, and the founder effect

Genetic Drift
The process of genetic drift along with natural selection, mutation, and migration is one of the basic mechanisms of
evolution. In each generation, some individuals may by chance, leave behind a few more descendants (fewer genes
in the gene pool) than other individuals. The genes of the next generation will be the genes of the “lucky” individuals,
not necessarily the healthier or “better” individuals.

Genetic drift is the random changes in the gene frequencies of ALL populations from generation to generation.
This can happen because of sampling errors, or because some genotypes just happen to reproduce more than other
genotypes (not because they are “better,” but because they were lucky).

This process causes the frequency of genes (homozygous dominant, homozygous recessive, heterozygous) in a
population to drift around over time. Some genes may even “drift out” (become zero) of a population by chance.
Genetic drift decreases genetic variation within a population. Chance is just that, chance and it happens to ALL
populations.

So, although genetic drift and natural selection both bring about evolution they do it in different ways. Genetic drift
affects the genetic makeup of ALL populations through a random process (chance) while natural selection
occurs because of adaptations accumulating over time in individuals in a population.

Effects of Genetic Drift

Decreasing variation:
Imagine that our random draws from the marble bag produced the following pattern (light vs dark marbles): 5:5, 6:4,
7:3, 6:4, 8:2, 10:0, 10:0,10:0, 10:0, 10:0. Why did we keep drawing 10:0? Because if the dark marbles fail to be
represented in just one draw, we cannot get them back—we are “stuck” with only light marbles. The cartoon below
illustrates this process, beginning with the fourth draw.

IMPORTANT: The same thing can happen to populations. If the gene for dark coloration “drifts out” of the
population, the gene is simply GONE in the population.

NOTE: There is always a RANDOM chance that a mutation or gene flow MIGHT reintroduces the dark gene
later.

The 10:0 marble situation shows us one of the most important effects of genetic drift, it reduces the amount of
genetic variation in a population. With less genetic variation, there is less for natural selection to work with. If
the dark gene drifts out- does not exist anymore in the population, the population is out of luck. Natural selection
cannot increase the frequency of the dark gene in the population (more fit individuals for the environment) because it
is not there for selection to act on. Natural selection cannot create new genetic variations, the different genes have to
already be in the populations gene pool.

The impact on small populations:

The marble-drawing scenario also illustrates why drift affects small populations more. Imagine that your bag is
only big enough for 20 marbles (a tiny bag!) and that you can only draw four marbles to represent gene frequencies in
the next generation. Something like this might happen:

Notice how quickly and

drastically the marble ratio (light vs dark) changed: 1:1, 1:3, 0:1. This same process happens in small populations. All
populations experience genetic drift, but the smaller the population is, the sooner drift will have a drastic effect.
This creates big problems for endangered species with small population sizes.

Questions:

1. Explain how “stepping on bugs” is an example of genetic drift. (2)

You are killing bugs that are different and then they either evolve or
move away

2. How is genetic drift different from natural selection? (2)

Genetic drift is kind of like killing a random group of bugs and natural selection is when you kill only 1 kind of bug

3. How does genetic drift affect the genetic variation in a population? Why are smaller populations more affected
by genetic drift than larger populations? (4)

When the population is small they tend to get worried more than if in a big population if someone or something dies
Two Unique types of Genetic Drift: Bottlenecks and Founder Effect

Bottlenecks
As we learned genetic drift can cause big losses of genetic variation for small populations. One type of genetic drift is
seen when a population bottleneck occurs and the population’s size is reduced for at least one generation. Because
genetic drift acts more quickly to reduce genetic variation in small populations, undergoing a bottleneck can reduce a
population’s genetic variation by a lot, even if the bottleneck does not last for very many generations. This is
illustrated by the bags of marbles (light vs. dark) shown below, where, in generation 2, an unusually small draw
creates a bottleneck.

Reduced genetic variation means that the population may not be able to adapt to new selection pressures, such as
climatic change or a shift in available resources, because the genetic variation that selection would act on may
have already drifted out of the population.

An example of a bottleneck:
Northern elephant seals have reduced genetic variation probably
because of a population bottleneck human inflicted on them in the
1890s. Hunting reduced their population size to as few as 20
individuals at the end of the 19th century. Their population has since
rebounded to over 30,000—but their genes still carry the marks of this
bottleneck: they have much less genetic variation than a population of
southern elephant seals that was not so intensely hunted.

Founder Effect
Eastern Pennsylvania is home to beautiful farmlands and countryside, but it is also a gold mine of information for
geneticists, who have studied the region's Amish culture for decades. Because of their closed population stemming
from a small number of German immigrants, about 200 individuals, the Amish carry unusual concentrations of gene
mutations that cause several otherwise rare inherited disorders, including
forms of dwarfism.

One form of dwarfism, Ellis-van Creveld syndrome, involves not only short
stature but polydactyly (extra fingers or toes), abnormalities of the nails and
teeth, and, in about half of individuals, a hole between the two upper chambers
of the heart. The syndrome is common in the Amish because of the "founder
effect."

When a small part of a population moves to a new locale, or when the population is reduced to a small size
because of some environmental change, the genes of the "founders" of the new society are not as diverse as the
original population they came from; the only genes in this small population comes from these founding individuals.
If individuals in the group tend to marry within it, there is a greater likelihood that the recessive genes of the
founders will come together in the cells that produce offspring. Thus, diseases of recessive genes, which require
two copies of the gene to cause the disease, will show up more frequently than they would if the population
married outside the group.

In the Amish, in fact, Ellis-van Creveld syndrome has been traced back to one couple, Samuel King and his wife, who
came to the area in 1744. The mutated gene that causes the syndrome was passed along from the Kings and their
offspring, and today it is many times more common in the Amish population than in the American population at large.

The founder effect is an extreme example of "genetic drift." Genes occurring at a certain frequency in the larger
population will occur at a different frequency (more or less often) in a smaller subset of that population. As in the
example of human diseases, genetically determined traits that would ordinarily be uncommon in the overall
gene pool might crop up with distressing frequency in a small subset of that pool.

Questions:

4. What is a “population bottleneck?” (2)

Its when a population gets reduced

5. What is one possible consequence of reduced genetic variation in a population? (2)

That one variation will never be seen again after it dies

6. What is the difference between northern elephant seals and southern elephant seals? How does this demonstrate
genetic drift due to a bottleneck situation? (4)

When the elephant seals were up north they had to go down south because their living conditions being unable to
live in

7. What is the “founder effect?” (2)

It is an extreme example of genetic drift

8. Why are the Amish an example of the founder effect? (2)

Because they build everything by themselves and only use things they make
9. Why is Ellis-van Creveld syndrome more common in Amish than in other populations? (2)

Because the Amish use their hands to do anything and everything

10. Why would the frequency of Ellis-van Creveld syndrome decrease if the Amish married individuals from outside
of their community? (2)

They wouldn’t like how they live and whine about everything

11. Compare and contrast: (6)

bottleneck founder effect

it is when population size is its when the Amish work so much

f reduced for at least one generation and when they have a child
they are born with the same
l symptoms as the parents

12. Explain why both bottleneck and founder effects are examples of genetic drift but not examples of natural
selection. (4)

Bottleneck and founder effects are examples of genetic drift because it only happens to some people and not all
people are the same, they are not examples of natural selection because if it was then everyone would have the
same thing