Question

how long does it take for a founder population to arrive at Hardy - Weinberg equilibrium if they meet all of the HW conditions?

Answer 1

Founder effect:

• It is an extreme form of genetic drift.
• Results, when a small number of individuals from a population of a geographical region, establishes a new population in a different geographical region.
• Smaller the population, there is higher chance of genetic fixation of small-adaptive allele, due to random chance.

Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium:

• Hardy-Weinberg equation describes: The most possible distribution of the population genotype of the population, if the frequencies of the alleles are known.
• If allele frequencies are p and q, then the genotype frequencies are p2, q2, 2pq.
• A population is considered to be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium when:
• In a randomly mating population, allele frequency and genotype frequency remain constant.
• Thus, under Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium:

p+ q=1 and p2+2pq + q2 = 1.

Conditions for H-W equilibrium:

• Population is randomly mating.
• Population size is infinitely large.
• No natural selection.
• No mutation to create new allele.
• No migration (closed population- no immigration or emigration).
• No genetic drift.
• No genetic shift.

Thus.

If the newly established population is randomly mating and follows the conditions to establish H-W equilibrium, it will take 1 one generation for the population to arrive at Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.