Both inbreeding and genetic drift can cause problems for rare species with decli

Question

Both inbreeding and genetic drift can cause problems for rare species with declining population size due to reducing genetic diversity. Please contrast (say how they are different) these two forces in terms of number of alleles at a locus (some loci have more than two alleles) and in terms of average heterozygosity at a locus. In most organisms most mating is local. If populations of an organism are scattered across a landscape, with gaps between population, how will that affect inbreeding and expected Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium? If migration among populations increases how will it affect inbreeding and expected hardy-Weinberg equilibrium?

Explanation / Answer

* Inbreeding is mating between closely related (genetically) organisms. Inbreeding favors homozygosity, which increases the chances of offspring being affected by recessive or lethal traits. This decreases the fitness of the population.

* In rare species , there are few copies of an allele, and genetic drift may cause the gene variants to disappear, to reduce genetic variation. Genetic drift increases the inbreeding coefficient and increases homozygosity, due to removal of alleles.

* The severity of small population gene mitigation effect is decreases if populations are scattered over a landscape. The possibility of inbreeding decreases as organisms spread over a large area. Further diversification of alleles may be possible.

* MIgration redistribute standard genetic variation among populations. In th absence f selection, migration stabilizes allele frequencies

* Migration reduces diversity among populations of intermediate age, but show fonder effect among young populations.

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