bot·tle·neck / ˈbätlˌnek/ • n. 1. the neck or mouth of a bottle.2. a point of congestion or blockage, in particular: ∎  a narrow section of road or a junction that impedes traffic flow: narrow streets and a lack of parking space combine to make the town a bottleneck. ∎  a situation that causes delay in a process or system: lack of imports is making the bottlenecks in domestic output worse than usual.3. a device shaped like the neck of a bottle, worn on a guitarist's finger to produce special sound effects. ∎  (also bottleneck guitar) the style of guitar playing that uses such a device.

bottleneck A severe reduction in population size, often leading to a founder effect. Bottleneck events are commonly followed by rapid population expansion in which the rate of loss of new lineages is greatly reduced, giving rise to star phylogenies.

bottleneck A severe reduction in population size, often leading to a founder effect. Bottleneck events are commonly followed by rapid population expansion in which the rate of loss of new lineages is greatly reduced, giving rise to star phylogenies.