Where does founder collide?

In population genetics a founder is one of the small number of individuals that starts a new, isolated population, and the founder effect is the loss and reshuffling of genetic variation that follows because those few carry only a fraction of the parent population's genes. Ernst Mayr introduced the founder principle in his 1942 book Systematics and the Origin of Species, arguing that a population begun by a handful of colonists can diverge quickly from its source. Templeton's 1980 The theory of speciation via the founder principle gave the idea a formal genetic treatment. Here a founder is a colonising organism whose small numbers narrow a gene pool, not a person who starts a company or a disease of a horse's foot.[1][2]

Unit

One colonising individual, or the founding group whose size sets the width of the bottleneck

Recovery means

Variation can slowly rebuild through new mutation and later gene flow into the population

Measured by

Estimated from reduced heterozygosity and shifted allele frequencies compared with the source population

In organization studies a founder is the person or small group who establishes a firm and stamps it with durable features, from its structure to its culture, that persist long after the firm is born. Arthur Stinchcombe's 1965 chapter Social structure and organizations first argued that organizations carry the imprint of the conditions and people present at their founding. Marquis and Tilcsik's 2013 review Imprinting: Toward a Multilevel Theory drew the scattered evidence into a general account of how founders and founding conditions leave lasting marks. Here a founder is a human actor and the origin of an organization's enduring traits, unrelated to a colonising group in a gene pool or a lameness in a horse.[3][4]

Unit

One founder, or the founding team, of a single organization

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Studied through founder backgrounds, founding conditions, and the traits that persist in the firm over time

In equine veterinary medicine founder is the common name for laminitis, a painful inflammation of the soft tissue that bonds the hoof wall to the coffin bone inside a horse's foot; in severe cases that bone rotates or sinks, which is where the word founder comes from. Pollitt's 2004 review Equine laminitis describes the disease's mechanism, its links to metabolic and inflammatory triggers, and its treatment. The term is an old one in horse keeping, older than either scientific meaning of the word, though its coining cannot be traced to a single work. Here founder names a hoof disease diagnosed in a clinic, not a colonising group in a gene pool or the person who starts a company.[5]

Unit

One clinical case of laminitis in one horse

Recovery means

Mild cases may resolve with treatment, but rotation of the coffin bone can leave permanent lameness

Measured by

Diagnosed by lameness scoring, hoof examination, and radiographs showing the position of the coffin bone