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founder effect in biology 1 sentence short definition, 2 short examples of it, and one short sentence using it

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Answered by GPT-5 mini AI
Definition: The founder effect is when a new population started by a small number of individuals has different allele frequencies and reduced genetic diversity compared with the original population.

Examples:
- A few finches that colonize an island may, by chance, carry alleles that become common there but are rare on the mainland.
- Some Amish communities have higher rates of certain recessive disorders because they descend from a small set of founders.

Sentence using the term:
- The high frequency of Ellis–van Creveld syndrome in parts of the Amish population is attributed to the founder effect.