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Exploring Population Change without Selection: Avida-Ed Lab Book Exercise 4

Author(s): Amy Lark, Cory Kohn1, Jim Smith1, Louise Mead2, Robert T Pennock1, Wendy Johnson

1. Michigan State University 2. BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action

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Description

In this exercise you will investigate the effects of genetic drift alone by ensuring that adaptive evolution as a result of selection cannot occur. Since natural selection requires phenotypically expressed genotypic variation, we must eliminate the source of this variation by setting the mutation rate to 0%.

Student Learning Goals

  • Students will be able to explain how non-adaptive evolutionary change can occur.
  • Students will be able to explain the relationship between population size, population diversity, and genetic drift.
  • Students will be able to graph and explain how population size and genetic drift influence the frequency of traits or alleles over evolutionary time.
     

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