In Evolutionary Theory
Further information: Evolutionary biologyAs a population becomes smaller, genetic drift plays a bigger role in speciation. A land animal like a brown bear might find itself locally reduced to a few dozen pairs on an Arctic island. That likely happened as the last Ice Age came to an end, and the Bering land bridge receded into the sea. In that circumstance, a beneficial trait appearing in an alpha male or two may change the color, size, swimming ability, cold resistance, or aggressiveness of the group in just a few generations.
Read more about this topic: Population Bottleneck
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