Answer:
Founder effect
Step-by-step explanation:
The complete question is as follows:
Which of the following is the most likely explanation for a particular human population with a higher incidence of polydactyly (extra fingers/toes) than the human population as a whole?
diversifying selection
founder effect
directional selection
bottleneck effect
- When a small number of individuals move out of a larger population into a new area and colonise then the descendants arising from these smaller number of individuals have reduced genetic diversity and this is termed as founder effect.
- The loss of genetic variation occurs because the smaller number of individuals will only have a limited number of alleles for a given gene and hence, the genetic diversity will be reduced.
- In such cases where founder effects occurs, it is usually seen that there are higher incidences of having genetic defects amongst the individuals.
- Thus, if a particular human population has higher incidence of polydactyly then this must be a cause of founder effect.