Question

Imagine that a new population of humans is established on a previously uninhabited planet from ten randomly selected people in your biology class. Over thousands of years, the descendants of those ten people reproduce and prosper, but they do not reflect well the diversity of humans on Earth. This reduction in genetic diversity in the establishment of the population is an example of __________.

Answer 1

Founder effect.

Step-by-step explanation:

Founder effect is a case of genetic loss due to an event in which a small subset of individuals of a population becomes isolated from a larger population. As the problem states, this population will never represent the diversity existing in the original larger population, and without the opportunity to interbred with a different population, this group will become distinct.

One of the reported outcomes of the founder effect is the explanation of the higher prevalence of some genetic disorders in specific populations.