What you need to do Before you begin this assignment, I recommend that you clear

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What you need to do

Before you begin this assignment, I recommend that you clearly understand what evolution is (a change in allele frequency from one generation to the next). Especially understand the founder effect. Make sure you use the information provided and give me informed ideas that are based on your understanding of the subject matter. For this assignment you will have to answer the following items:

Pick and a rare genetic disorder that is common among the Amish and tell me how common the disease is around the world vs among the Amish? Give me numbers! (You can tell me what the disease does but you will not need to give me details. The important idea is to understand why disease associated allels are found in high frequencies in the first place!)

Explain in evolutionary terms why the genetic disorder is found in unusually high frequencies among the Amish in the first place. In other words, why did some genetic variants that cause disease become unusually common over time among the Amish? Use the founder effect.

Explain how the Amish might be able to curtail the incidence of your chosen genetic diseases using evolutionary knowledge. Use must explain this in evolutionary terms.

Lastly, remember to cite all your work!

Explanation / Answer

Amish and Mennonites exhibit certain rare diseases uncommon in other populations. These include Ellis-van Creveld syndrome (a type of dwarfism), glutaric aciduria, Crigler-Najjar syndrome, and maple syrup urine disease. Some illnesses are so uncommon that they are unique to these communities (such as Troyer Syndrome or Amish lethal microcephaly), or rarely seen elsewhere.

Some groups of Amish may exhibit diseases more likely to be seen in the general public, but at a higher rate. These include cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy and deafness in some communities.

Genetic drift is one of four factors (mutation, migration, genetic drift, and natural selection) causing gene pools to change over time, and genetic drift is at the heart of several recent theories of evolution. In the shifting-balance theory of evolution (Wright, 1931) genetic drift is part of a two-phase process of adaptation of a subdivided population. In the first phase genetic drift causes each subdivision to undergo a random walk in allele frequencies to explore new combinations of genes. In the second phase a new favorable combination of alleles is fixed in the subpopulation by natural selection and is exported to other demes by factors like migration between demes. Much of the basic theory of genetic drift was developed in the context of understanding the shifting balance theory of evolution.

Genetic drift can have major effects when a population is sharply reduced in size by a natural disaster (bottleneck effect) or when a small group splits off from the main population to found a ... In populationgenetics, evolution is defined as a change in the frequency of alleles (versions of a gene) in a population over time.

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