How Do Alleles Contribute To Genetic Diversity

Homozygous: Refers to expressing the same alleles for a particular trait. If black was dominant for the above chicken, and the alleles were coded for by B, if it was homozygous, the chicken’s genotype would be BB.

Genetic diversity provides a species with its form and function. A species genotype refers to their genetic code; what their cells are going to be used for – hair cell, eye cell, muscle cell, etc. A species phonotype refers to the way in which that species gene will be expressed – blonde hair, blue eyes, large muscle tone; which significantly impacts the success of that individuals genes. Without genetic diversity among populations the gene pools would be very limited, which gives way to a rise in mutations and inevitably the end of a species. “Genes regulate body size, shape,

3. An organism with a dominant allele for a particular form of a trait will sometimes show that trait.

13) In a population with two alleles, A and a, the frequency of a is 0.50. What would be the frequency of heterozygotes if the population is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium?

You can either be a homozygote which is when you have two copies of the same gene or you can heterozygote which is when you have one copy of each gene

The first question I would like to answer is, “How does genetic diversity provide the material for ‘natural selection’?” It all comes down to who and what can survive and reproduce. Without genetic diversity, it would be more difficult for natural selection to eliminate those who cannot provide good and strong genes for generations to come. For example, the runt

Specific forces drive evolution and alter populations over the course of many generations. Different characteristics are inherited when a modification occurs in a species. Present genes within a population controls the characteristics, which determine the allele frequencies. Evolution occurs in a population of interbreeding that involves multiple members. To drive evolution, there are five forces: Natural selection, Migration, Mutation, Nonrandom mating, and Genetic drift.

The founder effect occurs when a small number of individuals leave the main population and found their own. The new populations will have different allele frequencies than the main population causing evolution. Another vehicle of evolution occurs from migration when individuals enter or leave a population. When migrating, individuals reproduce in a new population the allele frequencies in the new population change. Also, the allele frequencies in the population from which the migrants left is changed from the loss of the genetic material. Finally, there is evolution through the process of natural selection, which occurs when a heritable trait provides an organism with a better chance of survival. This advantage allows this organism to reproduce more causing the trait to spread throughout a population. These four mechanisms of evolution have the same final result with the change in allele frequency

Genetic Drift (Allelic Drift) is a change in the genetic structure of a population because of random events such as floods, earthquakes or fires, which leads to changes in allele frequencies (the frequency of an allele at a specific locus in a population (Gillespie, 1998) over time which influences its survival. The impact of genetic drift seems to be smaller in bigger populations and larger in small populations due to the lower number of individuals, and small size of a gene pool. Consequently, it may lead to disappear in gene variants and thereby limits the genetic variability (DeBenedictis, 2014).

There are many terms used by geneticists. The most simple is the word trait. Traits are characteristics that come from one’s genes; they can be inherited, meaning that they come from an organism’s parents. Genes are much like blueprints for what an organism will be. Genes can be either dominant or recessive (dominant genes overpower recessive ones). Genotypes are, put as intelligibly as possible, the type of gene that one has for each trait that he or she owns. An allele is a trait that an organism gains from one parent. One gets two alleles for each phenotype (a physical trait). An organism is either homozygous dominant for a phenotype (it has two of the same dominant alleles),

Genetic variability is caused by mutations and gives a population genetic diversity. A mutation is the change in the sequence of nucleotides in a gene (“Mutation”). Mutations happen during meiosis, which is the process of making gametes, also known as sperm and egg (“Meiosis, inheritance and variation”). Meiosis helps to increase genetic variation. After the gametes are made they can go through sexual reproduction. Sexual reproduction is the fusing of male and female gametes to form a zygote, which will eventually develop into the offspring of the two gamete providers (“Sexual reproduction”). Genetic variability is important to natural selection because the differences in a population allow the better adapted organisms to survive and reproduce while the others die and let the next generation be better adapted (Orland).

Genetic variation is important in many ways, it is the whole reason why people look and act different from eachother and why we have advantages over some things. Without variation, we would all be the same organism and we would all have the same advantages, but we would also have the same weaknesses and we would never be able to survive long enough and we would all go extinct. Genetic variation is mainly caused by two sources, mutations and recombination.

Another way species can vary is recombination and it shuffles our genes during reproduction to create new gene combinations. Recombination happens when the egg and sperm cells are being made during the process when chromosomes are “crossing over”. During the crossing over chromosomes exchange information to each other. Recombination can also happen to asexual species like bacteria where they transfer genetic information through lateral gene transfer. Furthermore, Variation is important because without it we would all look and act the same. More importantly, another reason why variation is important because they give us aspects on where natural selection can help evolution. For example because of mutation and recombination, they were able to

Within an individual, there is a duplicate genetic information from the mother and the father; it is the same type of information, but the forms may vary. However, when genetic diversity among individual within a group, it is different; every individual has their own genetic information. Every individual has their own genetic information because of the gene pool. Gene pool is the sum of the variances of an interbreeding population. Among a population, genetic diversity are different gene pools in a group of population. Different genetic information in a population is an advantage because it is the key to environment adaptation and local adaptation (NPS).

The main cause of genetic diversity in living things are the five processes of evolution. These five processes- genetic drift, gene flow, natural selection, speciation, and mutations- all affect allele frequencies within a population in different ways, thus, creating genetic diversity.