Moderate

How does inbreeding negatively impact a population?

Correct answer: D. All of these

  • A. The frequency of alleles does not change within the population
  • B. It reduces the number heterozygous individuals, preventing beneficial alleles from being efficiently selected for
  • C. It increases the number of homozygous individuals, allowing potentially harmful recessive alleles to express themselves more frequently
  • D. All of these

Explanation

The candidate first must know, what inbreeding means and then judge the options in accordance. Inbreeding is the mating of individuals that are closely related to each other and mostly have the same kinds of genes. All the options given in the options clearly suggest that they are closely related and dependent on each other. Since, inbreeding increases the homozygous individuals, which leads to a decrease in the heterozygous individuals in the population, overall which have no impact on the frequency of alleles as they remain the same. Thus, candidates must prefer option 'D' which suggests 'all of these'.

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Evolution describes heritable change in populations over generations through variation, natural selection and adaptation. Lamarckism explains inheritance of acquired characteristics, while Darwinism explains selection of favourable inherited variations; these historical explanations must not be confused with the modern genetic account of evolutionary change.

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