Question

Suppose a new mutation that improves metabolic efficiency is lost from a small population of mammals living in a region of seasonal food scarcity after a hurricane eliminates half the mammal population. This is an example of _________.A) sexual selection.
B) directional selection.
C) genetic drift.
D) stabilizing selection.
E) disruptive selection.

Answer 1

Answer:

C) genetic drift.

Explanation:

Genetic drift is the random change in the frequency of alleles in a population due to random sampling. Many circumstances can lead to genetic drift for example bottleneck effect, founder effect, etc.

The bottleneck effect occurs when most of the members of a population die because of any natural disaster like flood, fire, etc. This can cause a certain allele to be lost in the remaining population because of losing major populations. So here due to hurricane half of the mammal population gets eliminated which shows it is an example of the genetic drift.