In a population of beetles, there are green and brown colorations that occur with equal frequency. after a forest fire, only 20 beetles remain. 18 of them are green and 2 of them are brown. what describes this change in frequencies?
a) founder effect provided a new distribution of phenotype frequencies
b) gene flow occurred, as the 20 beetles migrated from a distant location.
c) a population bottleneck occurred, altering the resulting allele frequencies.
d) natural selection selected for phenotypes that blended with green leaves, which did not burn.

C. a population bottleneck occurred, altering the resulting allele frequencies

Explanation:

A population bottleneck occurred, altering the resulting allele frequencies. Since a catastrophic fire affected the original population, many of the beetles were killed off. The resulting population that is left to reproduce has a different allele frequency. This is known as the bottleneck effect, and is a type of genetic drift. Allele frequency and phenotype frequency changes are random and are not due to selective pressures.

nucleic acid molecules are incredibly complex, containing the code that guarantees the four different nucleotide units comprise dna, the nucleic acid of interest to the genealogist. and one of four nitrogen-containing molecules called nucleotides