Practice question

Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium assumes infinitely large population size so sampling error becomes negligible across generations. Small population size violates this assumption, causing genetic drift where allele frequencies fluctuate randomly each generation due to limited gamete sampling forming zygotes. Drift leads to random loss or fixation of alleles, increased homozygosity, and deviation from p squared, two pq, q squared expectations. Thus small size acts as potent evolutionary force introducing stochasticity, unlike random mating or absence of mutation which are required conditions for stability at equilibrium.