Question

Remember that albinism is a recessive Mendelian trait. A rabbit breeder has one albino rabbit with the genotype "aa." He also has a brown and white-colored rabbit (pictured) with the genotype Aa (it had a single albino parent, and one brown-colored, brown-eyed parent). The breeder is wondering whether these two rabbits will produce any albino offspring, and wants to know on average how many offspring will be albino from a cross between his two rabbits? What would you tell him?

A. About 50% of the offspring on average would be albino.

B.None of the offspring will be albino.

C.All of the offspring would be albino.

Answer 1

Albinism is a condition in which pigments are not produced in the body. It is due to homozygous recessive genotype for the albino allele.

Let the normal allele be A and allele for ablinism be a.

Breeding rabbits are aa and Aa. The cross can be shown as:

	A	a
a	Aa (normal)	aa (albino)
a	Aa (normal)	aa (albino)

The probability of producing albino offspring would be 2/4 or 50%. Thus, the correct choice should be:

A. About 50% of the offspring on average would be albino.