Question

A small, isolated population of parrots live in a part of the jungle that does not undergo any changes for an extended period. Genetic drift is likely to cause this population to change in what way?

The population will stop evolving.


New traits will appear more frequently.


Genetic diversity within the population will decrease.


The population will begin to break up into separate species.

Answer 1

Genetic diversity within the population will decrease.

Step-by-step explanation:

Genetic drift reduces the frequency of a given allele in a population due to the phenomenon of random sampling. That is, if a population is small, the chance of some alleles being lost is increased, and this results in genetic drift. This reduces variation in a population over time.

An alternative option is that certain, previously rare alleles can become more pronounced in a population due to genetic drift.