d. bottleneck events. When a population is small, there is a greater chance of a catastrophic event (such as a natural disaster, disease outbreak, or human intervention) drastically reducing the number of individuals in the population. This reduces the diversity in the gene pool, as only a small subset of the original population remains to pass on their genes to the next generation. This can lead to increased inbreeding and the loss of advantageous traits, further reducing the genetic variability of the population.
