BIO220H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Effective Population Size, Genetic Drift, Heterozygote Advantage
38
BIO220H1 Full Course Notes
Verified Note
38 documents
Document Summary
Biodiversity can be measured at different levels: interspecific variation ecologists, intraspecific variation evolutionary geneticists. Conservation genetics: applying genetics to conservation, restoration and managing endangered species. The 3 different elements can result in different solutions to address the loss of genetic diversity. What happens genetically to declining populations: genetic drift is enhanced. Chance will result n changes in the gene frequency. Alleles will fix randomly and there will be a loss of genetic variation: inbreeding becomes more common and thus heterozygosity is reduced as a consequence. Reduced fitness = fewer individuals in the population, decline in number of individuals = decline in heterozygosity. Genetic drift = random sampling of alleles which causes differences in allele frequency. Stochasticity = random differences in survivorship of reproduction that causes changes in the population dynamics. Genetics: small populations from declining populations should have reduced population sizes. Demography: should dominate and lead to extinction before the effects of genetics can manifest.
