As part of a wildlife conservation program, researchers take a small population of wolves and relocate them to an island. After several generations, researchers analyze the genomes of the wolves in the population and determine that there is little genetic variation in the population.

Question

Which evolutionary mechanism BEST explains the low level of genetic variation of these wolves?

Founder effect

Mutation

Recombination

Gene flow

Answer 1

The evolutionary mechanism that best explains the low level of genetic variation in the population of wolves on the island is the Founder effect.

The Founder effect occurs when a small number of individuals from a larger population establish a new population. Because the founding population is small, it may not represent the genetic diversity of the original population, leading to reduced genetic variation. In this case, the small population of wolves that was relocated to the island likely resulted in a limited gene pool and consequently low genetic variation over subsequent generations.