Question

One year later, you return and repeat the catch-and-release experiment. This time you catch 96 brown mice and 4 albino mice. What are the allele frequencies for the brown and albino? What is are the frequencies of the homozygous dominant, heterozygous, and homozygous recessive genotypes? Has the population evolved? Explain your answer.

Answer 1

Total mice = 100

Brown mice = 96

Albino mice = 4

Allele for albino = q

Allele for brown mice = p

Genotypic frequency for albino, qq = 4/100 = 0.04

Allelic frequency of brown mice, q = √0.04 = 0.2

According to HWE, p + q = 1

p = 1 - q = 1 - 0.2 = 0.8

Genotypic frequency of homozygous dominant = pp = 0.8×0.8 = 0.64

Genotypic frequency of heterozygous dominant = 2pq = 2×0.8×0.2 = 0.32

We cannot tell whether the population has evolved or not evolved. According to Hardy weinberg equilibrium if the allele frequencies aur genotypic frequencies in a generation in a population remain constant, then the population is said to be non evolving or is in an ideal condition. But here we are talking only about one generation so we cannot tell me whether the population is evolving or not. Even if the population is not under Hardy weinberg equilibrium the allele and genotypic frequencies sum to 1 but will change from one generation to the other.

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