Developed by Ron Mumme (rmumme@alleg.edu), Biology Department, Allegheny College, Meadville, PA 16335.
Discipline: Biology
Evolution is usually defined as "genetic change in a population over time". Although evolutionary change is often produced by deterministic factors such as natural selection, genetic change also can be caused by random, stochastic processes operating within finite populations. Evolutionary change resulting from such chance events is referred to as genetic drift, and that is the focus of Drifter. Drifter allows students to simulate genetic drift in a series of simulated experimental populations of fruit flies. From 1 to 100 generations of genetic drift can be simulated in two groups of 20-200 replicate populations consisting of 2-200 individuals. Following a particular simulation, students have the option of examining the effect of genetic drift on genetic change within individual populations, the effect of drift on within-population genetic variation, and the effect of drift on between-population genetic variation.
Drifter is used for individual student exploration at Allegheny College.
This application was developed under NeXTstep release 2.2.
