Genetic drift describes random, non-selective change to the allele frequencies of a population. It is one of the five forces that can cause evolutionary change and is more likely to occur in small populations. To test how population size affects change, try the Population Genetics Simulation.

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This simulation examines what happens to a population that experiences a sudden decrease in population size following a drought. A worksheet is available for use with this activity on Google Drive. See the genetic drift blog post for additional discussion of the activity or the "What is genetic drift?" post for a discussion of this evolutionary force. 

 

Click on the "Introduction" button to get more specific information about the simulation.​​