We decide to run a population genetics experiment with Droso…
We decide to run a population genetics experiment with Drosophila. However, after the class decides to rebel if I ever discuss Drosophila again, I agree we should run it on wolf spiders instead. Our gene of interest has a single locus and two alleles, A and a. Because we are good scientists, we decide to run our experiment eight times, and each time we start with a population of 1,000 individuals. Our experiment generates the following figure: Using what we’ve learned in class, explain what biological phenomenon could have produced the pattern you see in the graph above and why it produces this pattern. Make sure to explain how you know this. What can you determine about the relative fitness of each allele? How do you know this?
Read DetailsPea aphids are found in two colors, pink and green. Imagine…
Pea aphids are found in two colors, pink and green. Imagine that these colors are determined by two alleles at a single locus, where green is dominant to pink. Consider a population where there are 328 pink aphids out of a total 750 aphids. If the population is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, how many of the green aphids do you expect to be homozygotes?
Read DetailsA colleague of ours sends us some data and she’s very confus…
A colleague of ours sends us some data and she’s very confused. She collected data on the frequencies of a wild type (A) and a lethal recessive (L) allele in a population of Drosophila. The figure below was the result of plotting her data. She knows that the population clearly evolved over time, but isn’t sure how to explain the pattern seen in the figure. Explain what evolutionary mechanism(s) could have resulted in the figure above? Can you determine anything about the population size that she used in his experiment? Make sure to justify your answers.
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