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Concept information

Preferred term

founder effect

Type

  • Topic

Definition

  • Information The principle that when a small sample of a larger population establishes itself as a newly isolated entity, its gene pool carries only a fraction of the genetic diversity represented in the parental population. The evolutionary fates of the parental and derived populations are thus likely to be set along different pathways because the different evolutionary pressures in the different areas occupied by the two populations will operate on different gene pools.

Broader concept

Synonyms

  • founder population
  • population subdivision

In other languages

URI

https://lod.nal.usda.gov/nalt/41313

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