Final answer:
The concept of Muller's ratchet describes the process in a finite asexual population where deleterious alleles accumulate over time, known as genetic load.
Step-by-step explanation:
Muller's ratchet posits that in a finite asexual population, the number of deleterious alleles will increase over time. The accumulation of these deleterious alleles is called genetic load. This concept highlights the absence of recombination in asexual populations, which means that offspring are clonal copies of their parents and do not benefit from the shuffling of genes that occurs in sexual reproduction. As a result, the offspring cannot 'shed' the deleterious mutations, which then accumulate over generations. This contrasts with inbreeding, which refers to breeding between closely related individuals and can increase the prevalence of harmful genetic traits within a population. Linkage equilibrium and linkage disequilibrium pertain to the non-random association of alleles at different loci, but neither describes the accumulation of deleterious mutations as does genetic load.