Question

May I please have a specific outline of how to answer this question? Thank you. Here is the question:

- Explain how genetic variation alters characteristics of populations and provide a specific example.

Answer 1

Genetic variation has 2 causes:

Mutation & recombination

Answer

The genetic variation greatly influences the survival of the population. The environment changes in time and genetic variation helps the population to cope with this change of environment. If the genetic variation is high in the population, then there is great diversity in phenotypes. Thus, there is a high chance that any organism would have traits which lets the population to overcome & survive the environmental changes.

example

At the time of a heavy rainstorm, some members of the population were moved to a new region. The moved population is having a few but not complete genetic variation of the actual population. Thus they have low genetic variation and hence, the moved population is having a small gene pool compared to the actual population. The chances of survival for the moved population is very less incase of a change in environment.

hope the answer helps.