On the Isle of Man off the coast of Ireland, a curious cat referred to as a manx

Question

On the Isle of Man off the coast of Ireland, a curious cat referred to as a manx cat was described in 1845. It had long hind legs and a short tail. Further work showed that the manx characteristics were the result of a dominant M allele at a single locus. An MM zygote would not survive, but Mm genotypes produced the manx characteristics. Imagine a scenario where the M allele arises by mutation on the Isle of Man. Explain how genetic drift could cause the M allele to reach a relatively high frequency (freq(M) > 0.25), even though it has harmful effects on fitness. allele frequency is not given

Explanation / Answer

Genetic drift is a process in which allele frequencies within a population change by chance as a result of sampling error. In this process,which can lead to large changes in populations over a short period of time. Random drift is caused by categorizing small population sizes, and founder events.Allele having low frequency have negative effect on process of genetic drift. Those alleles face a higher probability of disappearing from a population than alleles that occur at a higher frequency.

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