Question

Biodiversity and Humans: Question 5 Tasmanian devils are animals that live in Tasmania and Australia. Tasmanian devils almost went extinct in the 20th century. The existing devils come from very few individuals. What can we say about the Tasmanian devil population?

Answer 1

Tasmanian devil population has very low genetic diversity

Step-by-step explanation:

The species that have experienced recent drastic reductions in their population sizes tend to lose genetic diversity due to a process known as genetic drift (i.e., random fluctuations in allelic frequencies). Tasmanian devils represent a well-known case of this process. In this species, many gene variants (alleles) lost when this species reduced its population size during the 20th century. In consequence, the current population of Tasmanian devils has a very low genetic diversity, where individuals are almost genetically identical.