Question

Give one reason why the extremely high homozygosity observed on San Nicolas Island is

expected to be harmful. Briefly explain your answer

Answer 1

It is expeccted to be harmfull because many deleterious alleles accumulate and most of them effect in homozygous recessive conditions. Thus , homozygous conditions in these cases will be harmful.

Another reason for harmfulness is adaptive disability, that these populations will not be able to adapt to the new conditions if may arise in sometime in future and adapt to it. Therefore it reduces variation of alleles in the population, and thus fixation of 1 allele and loss other , which is harmful for long run as well.