Genetic drift

Genetic drift is a random effect on biological populations. Its effect is to remove genetic variation from a population of living organisms.^[1]

In natural populations there are a number of forces acting. There are forces which add heritable variation to the population, such as mutation and recombination. There are also factors which remove variation from the population, and drift is one of these.

1. ↑ Gillespie, John H. 2004. Population genetics: a concise guide. 2nd ed, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore. Chapter 2 and 4.3 ISBN 0801880092