Question

A windstorm transports a few seeds of a plant species from Island A, where the species is abundant, to Island B, where prior to this event the plant species was not found. The environmental conditions on the two islands are very similar, but the islands are located far away from one another. Over time, a small population of this plant becomes established on Island B. A biologist samples plants on both islands and finds that allele frequencies on Island A differ substantially from allele frequencies on Island B at several genetic loci not known to affect survival or reproduction. Based on this information, the observed genetic changes mostly likely resulted from

Answer 1

Genetic drift

Step-by-step explanation:

Genetic drift refers to the changes in the allele frequencies of a population by a chance event alone. It is more effective in smaller populations and reduces genetic diversity by fixing alleles. According to the given information, population B stems from population A and the size of population B is small. Since the abiotic conditions of both the islands are similar, there would not be any changes in the allele frequencies driven by the accumulation of different adaptive features.

The observed genetic variations are in the genes that do not confer any survival and reproductive success which means that natural selection is not the mechanism responsible for this genetic variation. Any chance event or accidental event must have changed the allele frequencies of the population B randomly.