Question

In a natural population of 1892 monkeyflower plants at Lake Tahoe, you notice that there are three flower colors: red, pink, and orange. You breed the plants in the lab, and show that flower color is controlled by a single gene (FC) with two alleles, FC₁ and FC₂. FC₁/FC₁ homozygotes produce red flowers, FC₁/FC₂ heterozygotes produce pink flowers, and FC₂/ FC₂ homozygotes produce orange flowers.

You go back to your study site at Lake Tahoe and notice that both bumblebees and hummingbirds pollinate the monkeyflowers. The bumblebees primarily visit pink and orange-flowered plants, but sometimes visit red-flowered plants also. The hummingbirds primarily visit red-flowered plants, but sometimes visit pink and orange-flowered plants. You are asked to estimate both the genotypic and allelic frequencies at the flower color locus in the Lake Tahoe population. What is the most efficient way to estimate these frequencies?

Group of answer choices

a.) Count only red-flowered plants.

b.) Count only orange-flowered plants.

c.) Take the square root of the frequency of orange-flowered plants.

d.) None of these approaches will allow you to estimate these frequencies

e.) Take the square root of the frequency of red-flowered plants.

Answer 1

A) count only red flower

Hummingbird visit mostly red flower.

Bumblebee visit mostly pink and orange flower.

Orange flower is heterozygous. So , we use red flower because hummingbird is visiting only red flower whereas bumblebee visiting two flower.

For example :

Let's assume there are 100 flower , out of 100 flower 20 flower are red.

q= 20/100

q=0.2

q= 0.2

Allele frequency for red flower is 0.2

p+q=1 ( HWE) .

We can calculate the frequency for orange a(2pq)pink flower.