Overhunting of the northern elephant seals left only twenty individuals,from which the modern population arose.As a result,each animal is most likely ____ for most alleles.
A)recessive
B)dominant
C)homozygous
D)heterozygous
E)co-dominant

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The overhunting of the northern elephant seals resulted in a population bottleneck. A bottleneck occurs when a population is drastically reduced in size, leading to a loss of genetic diversity due to the random chance of which alleles survive in the population. In this case, if only 20 individuals survived, it is likely that they were highly related and carried many of the same alleles. This would result in a high frequency of homozygosity, where individuals have two copies of the same allele. Therefore, choice C) homozygous is the best answer.

Overhunting of the Northern Elephant Seals Left Only Twenty Individuals,from