Population Bottlenecks

Cheetahs are basically all the same. Any two randomly selected cheetahs will be so similar genetically that a skin graft from one will likely provoke no immune response in the other. In the distant past, cheetahs underwent a population bottleneck—an evolutionary event in which a species nearly dies out and is repopulated by a few individuals whose genes are then disproportionately reflected in the ensuing generations. All humans can trace their ancestry back to a single woman. When did she live? Discuss

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