Question

You are studying a population of finches that has a large variety of colorations and lives on an isolated island. Due to a hurricane, many birds die, and only a small number survive. In this new small population, you notice that the frequency of the yellow coloration is higher than before the hurricane. What mechanism explains this change?

A. Genetic drift because there is a sampling error due to a bottleneck. There is also no coloration that would help survive a hurricane.

B. Natural selection because the new environment changed the selection pressures on the finches to favor the yellow coloration.

C. Gene flow because the transfer of alleles or genes from one yellow bird to another in the population occurred prior to the hurricane.

D . Mutation because the lower numbers of birds invalidated the ability for random sampling to take place.

Answer 1

Ans:- correct option is :-

A. Genetic drift because there is a sampling error due to a bottleneck. There is also no coloration that would help survive a hurricane.

Explanation :-

Bottleneck effects is an extreme example of genetic drift which happens when an population is sharply reduced due to an random events such as natural disasters like earthquake, hurricane, tsunami etc.