Genetic Diversity facts

While investigating facts about Genetic Diversity Definition and Genetic Diversity Examples, I found out little known, but curios details like:

On average, genetic similarity between any two humans is 99.9%. There is about 2–3 times more genetic diversity within the wild chimpanzee population, than in the entire human gene pool.

how genetic diversity is measured?

The Bananas we eat today are all clones of one another and they might go extinct because there's no genetic diversity.

What is the biological significance of genetic diversity between populations?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what does genetic diversity mean. Here are 27 of the best facts about Genetic Diversity Meaning and Genetic Diversity In Humans I managed to collect.

what's genetic diversity?

1. Lake Toba is the largest volcanic eruption to have happened in the last 25 million years, and was believed to have killed most of the human race at the time, causing a population bottleneck which affects genetic diversity to this day.

2. About the Toba Catastrophe - the theory that 75,000 years ago, a massive volcano eruption reduced the human population to 3000, causing a genetic bottleneck that has reduced the genetic diversity in humans today.

3. Mexicans are extremely genetically diverse because of the mixture of Amerindian, African, and European tribes that have settled in Mexico. Mexicans from one region are as different from those from another region as Europeans are from Japanese.

4. The Pug population in the UK is so in-bred that the population of 10,000 only has the genetic diversity of 50 distinct individuals.

5. There are exactly 154 living kakapo (the world's largest parrot) and that they each have their own name (Often Maori names to indicate their New Zealand heritage). Scientists track their parents to encourage genetic diversity.

6. Bananas are completely sterile. Every edible banana variety is a genetic anomaly, that humans keep propagating purely by replanting offshoots from the parent plants. This lack of diversity makes it extremely susceptible to diseases.

7. He was a prolific writer and his works include Heredity, Race and Society (1946), Mankind Evolving (1962), The Biology of Ultimate Concern (1967), and Genetic Diversity and Human Equality (1973).

8. There is 2-3 times more genetic diversity within the wild chimpanzee population on a single hillside in Gombe, than in the entire human gene pool.

9. The domesticate dog is not a descendant of the extant (i.e. living) gray wolf, but from a now-extinct wolf population that was more genetically diverse than today’s wolf population.

10. Recent genetic studies suggest that Tasmanian tigers would probably become extinct even without "help" of humans due to lack of genetic diversity in the population.

Why genetic diversity is important to the survival of a species?

You can easily fact check why genetic diversity is so important to evolution by examining the linked well-known sources.

There is more genetic diversity in a group of apes on a hillside in Gombe than in the entire human race

Bodily odors are based on a gene section within DNA which encodes proteins related to the immune system, causing humans to be attracted to those with different odors in order to avoid inbreeding (genetic closeness) and increase genetic diversity of offspring. - source

Africans are more genetically diverse than the rest of the world - source

The Argentine ant, a species of ant with so little genetic diversity that members of the species do not attack eachother even if originating from nests in different countries, leading to Megacolonies such as one in California with trillions of members

James Cook University researchers in Australia have helped develop a new sperm freezing technique which, combined with artificial insemination, is designed to introduce genetic diversity into existing packs of the endangered African Wild Dog population. - source

When genetic diversity is lost due to a random event?

Almost all banana trees used in agriculture are clones of the same variety of plants. While this practice is good for business, the lack of genetic diversity means that one single pathogen could one day wipe out bananas as we know them

How genetic diversity important?

There is more genetic diversity between a group of 55 chimps than all 7 billion humans

There is more genetic diversity within the population of Africa than between African and Eurasian populations

India has the second-highest genetic diversity in the world. Also, the genetic diversity of the Indian subcontinent is a subset of Africa, and the genetic diversity outside Africa is a subset of India. [xpost from r/india]

Africans are more genetically diverse than the rest of the world together.

Human races do not exist taxonomically. A fixation index of 0.25 is required for a species to be have various sub-species. Humans have a fixation index of 0.11, less than half of the required of the criteria of genetic diversity needed for the existence of sub-species or races.