In recent years, population studies and pedigree analysis have shown how such mutations arise and spread within small founder populations.

Initial research focused on several such founder populations:

Twenty two deer were transferred from the Taipei zoo to serve as a founder population.

It was found that feral populations are often descended from very small founder populations.

Females typically stayed and mated within their founder population, but the rate of transfer through corridors in the males was very high.

Second, as founders become more geographically separated, the probability that two individuals from different founder populations will mate becomes smaller.

They were finally isolated no later than the Late Pliocene; the species is melanistic, suggesting a small founder population.

The Romanies have been described as "a conglomerate of genetically isolated founder populations".

This means that an effective founder population consists only of those whose genetic print is identifiable in subsequent populations.

Then its search spilled across the many planets where the two worlds' founder populations had originated, and hits came in the tens of thousands.