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Northern elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris, were nearly hunted to extinction in the 1890s, with only about 20 individuals left at the end of the century - VCE - SSCE Biology - Question 40 - 2015 - Paper 1
Question 40
Northern elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris, were nearly hunted to extinction in the 1890s, with only about 20 individuals left at the end of the century. The p... show full transcript
Worked Solution & Example Answer:Northern elephant seals, Mirounga angustirostris, were nearly hunted to extinction in the 1890s, with only about 20 individuals left at the end of the century - VCE - SSCE Biology - Question 40 - 2015 - Paper 1
Step 1
B. northern elephant seals would show less genetic variation than southern elephant seals.
Answer
Due to the drastic reduction in population size, northern elephant seals would have experienced a significant loss of genetic diversity, a phenomenon often associated with the 'bottleneck effect'. This would mean that they likely show less genetic variation compared to the larger population of southern elephant seals, which have more genetic diversity due to their larger and stable population size.