Author notes

119. Nautical Selection

usedbooks

on Aug. 31, 2012

I heard Noah mentioned casually on the radio during my drive home yesterday. An image popped into my head and made me giggle. I still remembered the image today, so I got it out of my head and onto my computer as efficiently as possible.

A genetic bottleneck is the term for when there is a drastic decrease in population, which alters the composition of the genetic pool. Often, after a bottleneck, diversity is decreased and a more homogenous population results. Depending on the mechanism of the bottleneck (possibly a plague, a natural disaster, or the introduction of a predator), the population after recovering from the bottleneck might be stronger – if the bottleneck event removed the weaker genotypes.