Imagine that the volcano on Mt. St. Helens erupts again. All life is removed from the side of the mountain and has to recolonize. Your first task as a geneticist for United States Forest Service is to estimate the frequency of the red allele in the lupine plants that colonize the site. You know that the lupine seeds came from a nearby population where the frequency of the red allele has consistently been approximately 0.2 for many generations. However, in the first year (i.e. first generation, before any local reproduction) on Mt. St. Helens, the red allele of this newly colonized population has a frequency of 0.9. What is the most likely explanation for this difference in allele frequency from the nearby population?
Imagine that the volcano on Mt. St. Helens erupts again. All life is removed from the side of the mountain and has to recolonize. Your first task as a geneticist for United States Forest Service is to estimate the frequency of the red allele in the lupine plants that colonize the site. You know that the lupine seeds came from a nearby population where the frequency of the red allele has consistently been approximately 0.2 for many generations.
However, in the first year (i.e. first generation, before any local reproduction) on Mt. St. Helens, the red allele of this newly colonized population has a frequency of 0.9. What is the most likely explanation for this difference in allele frequency from the nearby population?
Introduction
Individual species cannot develop; instead, populations (or gene pools) evolve as gene frequencies vary. The genes that make up the population's gene pool, which may undergo direct mutation, are what cause population variation.
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