Simulated Genetic Drift in Populations

Sat, 20 Feb 2021

Bioinformatics, Data Science, Data Visualization, Genetics, Genomics

This video shows a simulation of genetic drift in a synthetically generated population as a result of sexual reproduction. A fixed population size is divided into different distinct sub-populations with differing allele frequencies. Starting with an initial population, 80 simulated epochs are passed in which each population member is replaced via sexual reproduction from two randomly selected parents. Pairs of parents are chosen such that the probability they come from the same sub-population is higher than the probability that they from come different sub-populations.

Figure 1: Simulated Genetic Drift in Populations

In the animation, the high-dimensional allele features for each population member are represented in two dimensions using PCA. The size and color of each marker encodes information about sub-population makeup and may be used to help distinguish highly mixed samples.

Although the data is entirely synthetic, it demonstrates the middling affect that cross-breeding has on the genetic makeup of the overall population. As the number of sub-populations grows and the overall population size remains fixed, the impact of cross-breeding is intensified and the population as a whole converges more rapidly.