How does inbreeding depression decrease a populations fitnes

How does inbreeding depression decrease a population\'s fitness? Select all that apply. Inbreeding directly increases the frequency of harmful recessive alleles, fixing them in the population. Inbreeding increases the frequency of homozygotes, which are always less fit than heterozygotes. Inbreeding can increase the frequency of homozygotes for harmful recessive alleles. Inbreeding can shrink population size, causing the likelihood of further inbreeding to increase.

Solution

Inbreeding depression decrease a population\'s fitness because;

(a) Inbreeding directly increases the frequency of harmful recessive allele, fixing them in a population.

(b) Inbreeding can increase the frequency of homozygotes for harmful recessive alleles.

(c) Inbreeding can shrink population size, causing the likelihood of further inbreeding to increase.

Explanation: Inbreeding refers to the mating or breeding of organisms amongst closely related organisms. Inbreeding increases homozygosity, and thus the chances of offspring affected by recessive/deleterious traits increases. This type of mating leads to loss of genetic variation within small populations, and the population looses the ability to adapt/evolve to changing conditions. This may slowly lead to decline in populations.