genetic drift
Sign in to savevariation in the relative frequency of different genotypes in a small population
AI overview
Genetic drift is the random change in how common different genetic variations are within a small population, simply due to chance rather than because one variation is better or worse than another. It matters because in small populations, these random changes can cause some genetic variants to disappear entirely or become very common, which can significantly alter the genetic makeup of a population over time.
AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.
Article
Genetic drift is the change in the frequency of an existing allele in a population due to chance.
Genetic drift may cause alleles to disappear completely and thereby reduce genetic variation. It can also cause initially rare alleles to become much more frequent possibly leading to fixation where the initially rare allele displaces all others.