At one time, there were many more cheetahs than there are today. About 10,000 years ago, a change in
climate caused all but a relatively small number of cheetahs to go extinct. What type of evolutionary
mechanism acted on the remaining cheetahs?

-the founder effect

-the bottleneck effect

-genetic equilibrium

-punctuated equilibrium

the bottleneck effect

Explanation:

Genetic drift has an important impact on the small populations. mutations, which are spontaneous heritable changes in the genetic code, made up of DNA. Here, mutations accumulate over time in a group, modifying the distribution of alleles or various forms of a gene. Natural selection may result in a loss of diversity in a population called genetic drift; one trait's allelic frequency rises while others become less prevalent. Typically such differences exist because of occurrences of mutation and recombination.

Some mutations or alleles may become extinct from the population.

Variants of a gene accumulate and are transmitted across generations; the frequencies of these occurrences are altered and become more stable in genetic drift- they become genetically distinct and may eventually form a new species after isolation. This may be further compounded through other  phenomena such as the founder effect where a group separates and genetic diversity decreases; and the bottleneck effect where barriers to reproduction or the die-off a population increases genetic drift.