is analogous to genetic drift – a change in the population's allele frequency resulting from a random variation in the distribution of alleles from one generation to the next. In any one generation, no marbles of a particular colour could be chosen, meaning they have no offspring. In this example, if no red marbles are selected, the jar representing the new generation contains only blue offspring. If this happens, the red allele has been lost permanently in the population, while the remaining blue allele has become fixed: all future generations are entirely blue. In small populations, fixation can occur in just a few generations. Probability and allele frequency The mechanisms of genetic drift can be illustrated with a simplified example. Consider a very large colony of bacteria isolated in a drop of solution. The bacteria are genetically identical except for a single gene with two alleles labeled A and B, which are neutral alleles, meaning that they do not affect the bacteria's ability to survive and reproduce; all bacteria in this colony are equally likely to survive and reproduce. Suppose that half the bacteria have allele A and the other half have allele B. Thus, A and B each has an allele frequency of 1/2. The drop of solution then shrinks until it has only enough food to sustain four bacteria. All other bacteria die without reproducing. Among the four that survive, 16 possible combinations for the A and B alleles exist: (A-A-A-A), (B-A-A-A), (A-B-A-A), (B-B-A-A), (A-A-B-A), (B-A-B-A), (A-B-B-A), (B-B-B-A), (A-A-A-B), (B-A-A-B), (A-B-A-B), (B-B-A-B), (A-A-B-B), (B-A-B-B), (A-B-B-B), (B-B-B-B). Since all bacteria in the original solution are equally likely to survive when the solution shrinks, the four survivors are a random sample from the original colony. The probability that each of the four survivors has a given allele is 1/2, and so the probability that any particular allele combination occurs when the solution shrinks is (The original population size is so large that the sampling effectively happens with replacement). In other words, each of the 16 possible allele combinations is equally likely to occur, with probability 1/16. Counting the combinations with the same number of A and B gives the following table: As shown in the table, the total number of combinations that have the same number of A alleles as of B alleles is six, and the probability of this combination is 6/16. The total number of other combinations is