Question

Researchers think the cheetah population in Africa experienced extremely low numbers around 10,000 years ago, and then also again around 100 years ago. During both times, the low numbers rebounded back. Predict the consequence of this on the cheetahs of today.

a. Cheetahs are a very resilient population and unlikely to become extinct.
b. Cheetahs today are the strongest and fastest cheetahs ever.
c. Cheetahs today have very little genetic variation.
d. Cheetahs today are slower than those before the population fell.

Answer 1

Cheetahs are a very resilient population and unlikely to become extinct.

Step-by-step explanation:

LH Gunderson (2000) Defined ecological resilience as "the amount of disturbance that an ecosystem could withstand without changing self-organized processes and structures."

When a population is resilient, it tends to bounce back after major perturbations.

For instance, the Cheetah population was at the brink of extinction around 10,000 years ago, and then also again around 100 years ago yet the population was able to recover at both periods and never went extinct.

This implies that Cheetahs are a very resilient population and unlikely to become extinct.

Answer 2

c. Cheetahs today have very little genetic variation

Step-by-step explanation:

Genetic drift is an evolutive force. It is the random change that occurs in the allelic frequency of a population through generations. Its effects are harder in a small-sized population, meaning that the magnitude of this change is inversely related to the size of the original population.

Genetic drift results in some alleles loss -including the beneficial ones-, while some other alleles get fixated. Low-frequency alleles are the most likely to be lost. The changes produced by genetic drift accumulate in time and results in a loss of genetic variability within a population.

Genetic drift affects a population and reduces its size dramatically due to a disaster or pressure -bottleneck effect- or because of a population split -founder effect-. The bottleneck effect most likely affects smaller populations.

In the exposed example, the low numbers of cheetah around 10,000 years ago, and then also again around 100 years ago, might have been due to some natural disaster or extensive hunting that acted as a pressure that significantly reduced the number of animals. Probably, the population experienced one or many small-sized generations. Even though the low numbers rebounded back, the survivors did not have the whole genetic pool of the original population, meaning the genetic diversity might not have recovered. When the small groups increased in size, they had a genetically different composition from the original one. There is a reduced genetic variability, with a possibility of developing a peculiar allelic component. If the survivors in the population carried or developed a mutation, probably this mutation passed from generation to generation. It might involve even more individuals each time and increase the probability of developing a genetic disease.