Migration

What is gene flow?

Movement of genetic material from one population to another

What is migration?

Individuals moving between populations

• enables gene flow

• brings alleles not already in the population, altering allele frequences

What happened to Chinese allele frequencies in the 16th century?

• originally had Rh-positive

• European traders and sailors introduced Rh- allele

• frequency of Rh- allele still lower than most countries but it did change the allele frequencies

What are some barriers to gene flow?

Populations often kept apart by barriers that inhibit the amount of interbreeding between them (isolation => seperate gene pools)

• geographical barriers => oceans, mountain ranges, large lake systems, deserts, expansive ice sheets

  • e.g. Indigenous Australian’s isolated for 1000’s of years by ocean barriers

• sociocultural barriers => economic status, educational status, social postions, religion, language

  • e.g. statistics show that people in Australia are more likely to marry people of similar education, religion, culture, etc.

  • some religions do not allow marriage outside of their religion (unlikely people will marry if they cannot communicate)