Question

A population of 1,000 birds exists on a small Pacific island. Some of the birds are yellow, a trait determined by a recessive allele. The others are green, a trait determined by a dominant allele. A hurrican on the island kills most of the birds from this population. Only ten remain, and those birds all have yellow feathers. Which of the following statements is true regarding the hypothetical situation?A. Assuming that no new birds coome to the island and no mutations occur, future generations of this population will contain both green and yellow birds.B. The hurricane has caused a population bottleneck.C. This situation illustrtes the principle of adaptive radiation.D. This situation illustrates the founder effect Or, The ten remaining birds will mate only with each other, and will contribute to gene flow in the population.

Answer 1

Answer:

B. The hurricane has caused a population bottleneck

Explanation:

When there is a sudden reduction in the size of a population due to some unfavorable environmental conditions, the population is said to have experienced bottleneck. Bottleneck mostly results in genetic drift and changes the allele frequencies in the population. It is caused by some natural disasters or adverse conditions such as a hurricane.

In the given example, the hurricane removed all the birds with green feathers from the population and also has reduced the population size from 1000 to 10. Therefore, it represents the population bottleneck.