Evolution beyond natural selection: genetic drift, gene flow, mutation, and recombination

Natural selection is not the only thing that changes a population's gene pool over time. Genetic drift is random change in allele frequencies from one generation to the next, and it has its biggest effect in small populations, for example when a few individuals start a new population (the founder effect) or a disaster leaves only a few survivors (a bottleneck). Gene flow is the movement of alleles between populations when individuals migrate and reproduce, which tends to make populations more alike. Mutation adds brand-new alleles, and genetic recombination during sexual reproduction reshuffles existing alleles into new combinations.

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