Question

2. Flies inoving two populations are isolated from other populations of flies. Population S lives on a very small island and has 103 individual population size. Population L lives on a continent and has 108 individual population size. Assuming that the island population was found by a small group of organisms that drifted on a log from the continent to the island. No interchange of alleles were found between populations since that time.

a. Would heterozygosity be expected for most loci to differ among these two populations, and explain your reasoning.

b. What techniques would you use to determine how long ago the founding population was formed? Explain the process to a biology freshman.

c. A new, unique and beneficial mutation occurs that increases fitness by 1 percent. The mutation rate from the current allele to the beneficial mutation is 5 × 10–7. Approximately how likely is it that the beneficial mutation will be common in each population after 1000 generations? Explain to a biology freshman how you make this calculation, and the reasoning behind the formula.

d. How could we measure these two populations to see if genetic drift or natural selection is exerting a stronger evolutionary pressure? Explain to a biology freshman.

Answer 1