AndromedaRXJ
Active Member
Even though I agree with the vast majority of the above, we do know that smaller groups tend to evolve faster largely because phenotypes can much more quickly become genotypes because the gene pool is much smaller and because most mutated genes are recessive. I'm not a geneticist, but this is what I have read, including an article recently in Scientific American that mentioned this.
That makes sense too. It may have to do with selection pressure. I think under low selection pressure, smaller populations may be the ones to evolve faster since a given gene will spread through the population quicker. Whereas with a larger population, a given gene will take longer to spread to every member of the population. But on the other hand, if there's high selection pressure, then the larger populations will have better adaptability due to more genetic variety. Smaller populations become at risk of being wiped out completely.
So I guess to put it another way, smaller populations generally evolve faster. But larger populations have more adaptive potential.