Populations Exam 6 Practice

In the Wright-Fisher sampling process, the key idea is genetic drift in a finite, closed population with discrete, non-overlapping generations. The population size is fixed from one generation to the next, mating is random, and the alleles in the new generation come from a random sample of the parental gene pool, modeled by binomial sampling. In the standard version there is no natural selection, no migration, and no mutation (though some versions may introduce mutation or selection).

This combination captures how allele frequencies can fluctuate purely by chance from one generation to the next. Overlapping generations would violate the discrete-generation framework, an infinite population would eliminate drift, and having mutation present contradicts the no-mutation assumption of the classic model.