genetic drift
Noun
Meaning
genetic drift (countable and uncountable, plural genetic drifts)
(genetics, evolutionary theory) An overall shift of allele distribution in an isolated population, due to random fluctuations in the frequencies of individual alleles of the genes.
Synonyms
Examples
A very small mutation rate may lead to genetic drift (which is non- ergodic in nature).
Other alternative theories propose that genetic drift is dwarfed by other stochastic forces in evolution, such as genetic hitchhiking, also known as genetic draft.
Genetic drift main Ten simulations of random genetic drift of a single given allele with an initial frequency distribution 0.5 measured over the course of 50 generations, repeated in three reproductively synchronous populations of different sizes.
The effect of genetic drift is larger in small populations, and smaller in large populations.
The expected time for the fixation of this recessive allele due to genetic drift alone ranged from about 1,100 years to about 100,000 years. citation citation A rare "strawberry" leopard was photographed in South Africa's Madikwe Game Reserve.
The isolated populations then undergo genotypic and/or phenotypic divergence as: (a) they become subjected to dissimilar selective pressures; (b) they independently undergo genetic drift; (c) different mutations arise in the two populations.