Gene Pool
What is a gene pool? People talk about it all the time, some seriously and others as part of a joke. It is the set of unique alleles a particular species or population has to offer. If you take all the possible matches of genes in a particular species, you would have an unbelievable number of matches. All of these matches are the gene pool. In other words, the complete listing of genes that a person could possibility obtain his from.
The larger the gene pool, the more diverse that particular population will be. This indicates a strong population who can survive many changes and mutations. There is concern in areas where the gene pool is very small as it leads to inbreeding, and bottlenecks. It can result in the population becoming very unhealthy and extinct.
The gene pool helps explain why we are all unique in appearance, yet we often look similar to our parents, siblings, and other relatives. Some genes in the pool are dominate while others are recessive. The dominate genes take over most of the time, while the recessive genes may be hidden. Occasionally, a recessive gene can win the battle of the two if the genetic coding is right. For example, your mom and dad both have blue eyes. Both of your siblings have blue eyes. You on the other hand, have green eyes. Blue eyes are dominant in your gene pool while the green are recessive. However, your maternal grandmother may have green eyes and did your paternal grandfather. In the mix of the gene pool, you got a recessive gene for green eyes from both of your parents, causing you to have green eyes.
As our society continues to grow and become more diverse, the gene pool will continue to grow. Interracial children as well as the adoption of children from foreign countries have brought some very unique features to the overall gene pool of the population as a whole. This will ensure we continue to have unique looking individuals, but it will also result in more gene related problems as they gene pool pulls certain combinations together.
