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Founder effect: The original population (left) could give rise to different founder populations (right). In population genetics, the founder effect is the loss of genetic variation that occurs when a new population is established by a very small number of individuals from a larger population.
Common descent is a concept in evolutionary biology applicable when one species is the ancestor of two or more species later in time. According to modern evolutionary biology, all living beings could be descendants of a unique ancestor commonly referred to as the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) of all life on Earth.
The founder effect is a special case of a population bottleneck, occurring when a small group in a population splinters off from the original population and forms a new one. The random sample of alleles in the just formed new colony is expected to grossly misrepresent the original population in at least some respects. [44]
Proteomic evidence also supports the universal ancestry of life. Vital proteins, such as the ribosome, DNA polymerase, and RNA polymerase, are found in everything from the most primitive bacteria to the most complex mammals. The core part of the protein is conserved across all lineages of life, serving similar functions.
Population genetics is a subfield of genetics that deals with genetic differences within and among populations, and is a part of evolutionary biology.Studies in this branch of biology examine such phenomena as adaptation, speciation, and population structure.
Population bottleneck followed by recovery or extinction. A population bottleneck or genetic bottleneck is a sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental events such as famines, earthquakes, floods, fires, disease, and droughts; or human activities such as genocide, speciocide, widespread violence or intentional culling.
Schematic illustration of maternal (mtDNA) gene-flow in and out of Beringia, from 25,000 years ago to present. The genetic history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas is divided into two distinct periods: the initial peopling of the Americas from about 20,000 to 14,000 years ago (20–14 kya), and European contact, after about 500 years ago.
Ellis–Van Creveld syndrome often is the result of founder effects in isolated human populations, such as the Amish and some small island inhabitants. Although relatively rare, this disorder does occur with higher incidence within founder-effect populations due to lack of genetic variability.