Question

1. On a nice, sunny spring day you decide to go for a walk, where you notice a field of flowers. There are three colors visible: red, pink, and white. You know from you BIO 101 class that this could be the result of incomplete dominance of the red (R) and white (r) alleles for the gene encoding flower color. a. (2 points) You decide to do an experiment and count the number of flowers of each color. There are 49 red flowers, 42 pink flowers, and 9 white flowers. Assuming that the population of flowers is not currently undergoing microevolution, use the Hardy-Weinberg equations: P+q=1 and p+2pq+p=1 to determine the frequency of the red and white alleles in the population. Show your work. b. (2 points) Next year, you continue your experiment and go back to the same field of flowers. This time, you count 36 red flowers, 48 pink flowers, and 16 white flowers. What are the frequencies of the red and white alleles now? Show your work C. (2 points) Has the field of flowers undergone microevolution? Explain how you know this. d. (2 points) Assuming that there is no natural selection pressure on these flowers, what other source(s) of evolution might have acted on the flower population? Give an example of what might have occurred. Page