Genetic drift is the random alteration of gene frequencies in a population due to chance, particularly prominent in small populations.
1. Founder effect occurs when a portion of the population, isolated or migrated, develops genetic distinctions from the original due to allelic frequency changes, potentially leading to the emergence of a new species.
2. The founders of the drifted population experience this phenomenon, known as the founder effect.
3. Bottleneck effect results from natural disasters, shrinking population size abruptly, leading to genetic differences compared to the original population.
4. Environmental calamities like earthquakes or floods trigger bottleneck effects by reducing population size.
5. Survivors of bottleneck events may exhibit altered allele frequencies, with some alleles more prevalent, others less so, and some absent.
6. Both founder and bottleneck effects contribute to the evolutionary dynamics shaped by genetic drift in populations.