Question

A population of cheetahs was hunted to near extinction during the last three decades of the 19^th century. The number of animals increased to pre-19^th century levels due to their location being made off limits to hunters during the latter half of the 20^th century. Albinism, which was previously rare in this population, is now 10-fold over the frequency observed prior to the near extinction event. This is an example of

a) The founder effect

b) A genetic bottleneck

c) Disruptive selection

d) Natural selection

Choose only one answer.

Answer 1

b) A genetic bottleneck

the number of cheetahs has decreased considerably due to hunting, but due to ban on the hunting remaining individuals then reproduced and increased the number of individuals in the population, that is the cheetahs has survived a bottleneck.

the population cheetahs which survived after the intensive hunting do not have the genetic diversity as the previous population, that population has a high frequency of allele for albinism compared to previous populations so the population that arose from the survivers has a high frequency of albinism.