Question

The allele g is dangerous for a certain beetle species because it makes individuals that are homozygous for the allele albino and unable to camouflage with the brown soil. If 63% of a population of 550 individuals do not carry the allele, how many heterozygotes are there in the population? What are the chances that any one individual will be albino in the next generation?

Answer 1

Given that the 63% of the population is 550 so number of individual in 100% population will be 550*100/63 = 874.

According to Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium

Allelic freqeuncy= 1

and genotypic frequency = 1

if p is the allelic frequency of allele G and q is the allelic frequency of allele g then p+q= 1

and p2+2pq+q2 =1

p2 = 0.63 = frequency of the allele GG in population

Frequency of allele G= 0.79

As p+q= 1

So the frequency of allele q = 0.21 which is the frequency of allele g in the population.

Frequency of heterozygous individual in the population = 2pq

= 2*.079*0.21 = 0.33

Number of individual with heterozygous individual will be

Frequency of heterozygous individual * total population

0.33*874 = 291.