Question

In a population of lemurs, black fur coloring is dominant to gray. If you have 16 gray lemurs in a population of 200, what is the predicted frequency of the heterozygote genotype?

Answer 1

According to Hardy Winberg equilibrium p2 + 2pq + q2 = 1 or p + q = 1. Where p2 = frequency of homozygous dominant genotype, 2pq = frequency of heterozygote genotype and q2 = frequency of homozygous recessive genotype.

Here 16 out of 200 lemurs are homozygous recessive. It means, 8% of the population is homozygous recessive. Therefore according to Hardy Winberg equilibrium q2 = 0.8. Therefore q = 0.89

Now, as p + q =1 therefore p = 1 - 0.89 = 0.11

Therefore 2pq = 2 X 0.11 X 0.89 = 0.19

Thus, the frequency of heterozygote genotype = 0.19