Ecologists have studied the Galapagos islands for a long time because of the diversity of the populations they possess. It is th
ought that small colonies of finches emerged on each of these small islands, each small population carrying only certain alleles of the parent population. Over time, the emerging populations varied greatly from one another, leading to the development of new species. Which mechanism of speciation best describes this scenario? A) migration B) founder effect C) temporal isolation D) behavioral isolation Elimi
The founder effect represents the loss of genetic variation in a new population due to the small number of individuals from the larger population that have formed the new population.
The finches on the Galapagos Islands have developed unique characteristics in accordance to their environment. Because there were only very small number of individuals that settled each island, the genetic variation was not the same as while they were part of the larger populations.
Because of this, those small number of individuals starter to develop unique traits only on that single island, which can easily be seen in the shape of their beaks in accordance to the available food source.
Under these conditions an increase in the mutation rate evolves, which allows faster adaptation to the spatial variation in local temperature, causing a faster range expansion across the spatial gradient.
