Founder effect causes

Question

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Founder effect refers to the phenomenon where a small group of individuals migrate and establish a new population, leading to a loss of genetic diversity. This happens because the founders only carry a subset of the genetic variation present in the original population, and chance events during the early stages of population growth can further reduce that variation. As a result, the new population is genetically different from the original one, and may be more vulnerable to genetic disorders or environmental changes. While genetic drift can also happen as a result of the founder effect, it is not necessarily the cause, as other factors such as selective pressures or mutation rates can also play a role. Stabilizing selection and an increase in genetic variation are not typically associated with founder effect, as the former refers to balancing selection that favors intermediate traits, and the latter would require a mechanism for introducing new mutations into the population. An increase in allele frequencies can occur if one or more of the founders happen to have a high frequency of a particular allele, but it is not a necessary consequence of the founder effect per se.

Founder Effect Causes