Natural Selection Question Bank

In 1789, the mutineers of a British ship set the captain and the crew adrift. Twenty seven adults and one baby arrived at an island called Pitcairn and their descendants lived on that island for decades. This event caused a drastic reduction in the population size which decreased the genetic variation in the population.

Martin Fugate had an extremely rare disease, called Methemoglobinemia, which caused his skin to appear blue. Once he was married, to his cousin Emily (a carrier of the disease), the two moved to a secluded part of Kentucky and had children. After 200 years almost 65% of the people in this area exhibited rare blue skin.

Northern elephant seals have reduced genetic variation probably because humans hunted them in the 1890s and reduced their population size to as few as 20 individuals at the end of the 19th century. Their population has since rebounded to over 30,000. They have much less genetic variation than a population of southern elephant seals that was not so intensely hunted.

In Eastern Pennsylvania, there is an Amish community of around 200 individuals who migrated from Germany established this community. The Amish tend to marry within their group and live in isolation, causing genetic mutations to persist over generations. An example of this is Ellis-van Creveld syndrome, a rare disorder marked by extra fingers or toes (polydactyly), dwarfism, and occasionally congenital heart defects. The prevalence of Ellis-van Creveld syndrome is significantly higher among the Amish community compared to larger populations.

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