genetic drift

American  

noun

1. random changes in the frequency of alleles in a gene pool, usually of small populations.

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genetic drift Scientific  

1. Variation in the frequency of a gene in a small isolated population, thought to be due to random chance rather than natural selection.

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genetic drift Cultural  

1. A term that describes the random fluctuations in a gene pool over time. In large populations, the effects of genetic drift are negligible. (Compare natural selection.)

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Etymology

Origin of genetic drift

First recorded in 1955–60

Compare meaning

How does genetic-drift compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• gene flow vs. genetic drift

Example Sentences

Additionally, ancient adaptation signals can be masked by genetic drift -- random fluctuations in the frequency that genes appear -- and population mixing, which causes certain adaptive traits to disappear from the gene pool.

From Science Daily

Interestingly, about half of these adaptive signals were detectable only in the oldest time periods, meaning they later vanished due to genetic drift or were masked by extensive population mixing.

From Science Daily

For some time, they were a small outpost, in which random mutations would make larger differences in the population -- more of what's called "genetic drift" -- as the 1800s became the 1900s.

From Science Daily

The team demonstrated that besides the high impact of genetic drift, which contributed to differences among neighboring groups of different socio-economic status, the descendants of Kwadi speakers and the marginalized communities of the Namib Desert retain a unique Pre-Bantu ancestry that is only found in populations from the Namib desert.

From Science Daily

Its genetic drift is significantly different from BA.4 and BA.5, the variants last year's bivalent boosters were targeted against.

From Salon