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Message: <blockquote data-quote="njlarsen" data-source="post: 1949857" data-attributes="member: 7427">Forgive me for some hair-splitting, but genetic drift and founder effect are more separate than that. In the case of a group of individuals being transferred to a new area (or choosing themselves to go there), these individuals may be genetically different from the average of the genes in the population they come from. Founder effect describes which genes are present in these founding individuals. Genetic drift is about the changes in genetics that happen during the following generations, and which happens in every population that is small: one important aspect is that the changes are not caused by selection or genetic fitness. Imagine a group of 10 pairs, where one of the parents in one of the pairs carry a hidden (recessive) allele for something. If that pair happens to get more offspring than the other pairs (in humans that could be so simple as just loving kids more), then that recessive allele has increased its allele frequency in the following generation, and that is genetic drift. Unless there is a continued influx of additional immigrants, then the founder effect is done with generation one, and founder effect cannot cause genetic drift. Niels</blockquote>