Question
Biology Question on evolution
An isolated population of humans with approximately equal numbers of blue-eyed and brown-eyed individuals was decimated by an earthquake. Only a few brown-eyed people remained to form the next generation. This kind of change in the gene pool is called a
A
Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium
B
blocked gene flow
C
bottleneck effect
D
founder effect
Answer
bottleneck effect
Explanation
Solution
Population may sometimes be reduced to low numbers by predation, diseases, adverse period of climatic changes. Earth quakes, floods, etc. The few surviving individuals may constitute a random genetic sample of the original population. The resultant alterations and loss of genetic variability is known as bottleneck effect.