How to Use genetic drift in a Sentence

genetic drift

noun
  • The researchers could tell the changes were adaptive rather than just genetic drift.
    Doug Johnson, Ars Technica, 21 Mar. 2022
  • The random rise or fall of gene variants in a population is known as genetic drift.
    Quanta Magazine, 8 Dec. 2020
  • Elephants and mammoths share over 99 percent of their DNA, and the genetic profile of any species can change over time, through adaptation and genetic drift.
    Andy Lamey, The New Republic, 15 Dec. 2022
  • These variants are different from BA.4 and BA.5, but they’re descended from those viruses, the result of genetic drift.
    Brenda Goodman, CNN, 20 Oct. 2022
  • Just print the precise vaccine required at thousands of locations across the country, adjusting the design to account for genetic drift.
    Andrew Hessel, Ars Technica, 20 June 2019
  • Perhaps in groups like mammals, which have small population sizes, a rearrangement could randomly spread through what’s known as genetic drift, Rokhsar suggests.
    Quanta Magazine, 2 Feb. 2022
  • But genes can sometimes also become widespread just through random chance, a phenomenon called genetic drift.
    Cathleen O'Grady, Ars Technica, 3 Nov. 2017
  • The new study suggests the DNA disparity, not uncommon in small island populations, is a clear case of genetic drift: Chance determined which genes got passed to subsequent generations.
    Bridget Alex, Discover Magazine, 1 Jan. 2019
  • If the reproductive material could be readily frozen and defrosted, those studies would be easier to conduct and replicate, since researchers wouldn’t have to work around spawning schedules or struggle against genetic drift.
    Jacob Brogan, Smithsonian, 13 July 2017
  • As for the disparity in skull features, a number of factors, including diet and random genetic drift, could account for differences in appearance between modern Native Americans and Kennewick Man.
    Zach Zorich, Discover Magazine, 25 Feb. 2016
  • That genetic drift may partly explain why infection with the original omicron provides little protection against reinfection with its variants.
    Aidin Vaziri, San Francisco Chronicle, 9 July 2022
  • Now, a team of researchers is using the analogy of evolution to explain language change, arguing that key factors in biological evolution—like natural selection and genetic drift—have parallels in how languages change over time.
    Michael Erard, Science | AAAS, 1 Nov. 2017
  • Additional variation could come from random genetic drift, or separate adaptations meant to confuse predators.
    WIRED, 28 Nov. 2022
  • The concept has since been adapted to model stock market fluctuations, population genetics (specifically genetic drift), and neuron firing in the brain, among other applications.
    Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 9 Feb. 2023
  • Small, isolated groups of Oriental domestics gradually acquired distinctive coat colors and other mutations through a process known as genetic drift, in which traits that are neither beneficial nor maladaptive become fixed in a population.
    Andrew C. Kitchener, Scientific American, 1 Sep. 2015
  • In a growing population, chance effects, known more formally in evolutionary theory as genetic drift, can become more powerful than natural selection.
    Quanta Magazine, 2 Aug. 2013
  • Many of the conservation herds overseen directly by the Interior Department have 400 or fewer animals — leaving them prone to problems of inbreeding and genetic drift that reduce environmental adaptability.
    Washington Post, 3 Nov. 2019
  • In the more extreme cases this produces recessive diseases (and because inbreeding reduces effective population and increases the power of random genetic drift deleterious recessives can even fix within a population rather quickly).
    Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 18 July 2013
  • Recall that random genetic drift changes allele frequencies due to conventional sampling processes, with greater variation generation to generation across small populations.
    Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 24 July 2013

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'genetic drift.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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