The allele frequency within a given population can change depending on environmental factors; therefore, certain alleles become more widespread than others during the natural selection process. Natural selection can alter the population’s genetic makeup. An example is if a given allele confers a phenotype that allows an individual to better survive or have more offspring. Because many of those offspring will also carry the beneficial allele, and often the corresponding phenotype, they will have more offspring of their own that also carry the allele, thus, perpetuating the cycle. Over time, the allele will spread throughout the population. Some alleles will quickly become fixed in this way, meaning that every individual of the population will carry the allele, while detrimental mutations may be swiftly eliminated if derived from a dominant allele from the gene pool. The gene pool is the sum of all the alleles in a population.

Sometimes, allele frequencies within a population change randomly with no advantage to the population over existing allele frequencies. We call this phenomenon genetic drift. Natural selection and genetic drift usually occur simultaneously in populations and are not isolated events. It is hard to determine which process dominates because it is often nearly impossible to determine the cause of change in allele frequencies at each occurrence. We call an event that initiates an allele frequency change in an isolated part of the population, which is not typical of the original population, the founder effect. Natural selection, random drift, and founder effects can lead to significant changes in a population’s genome.