Question

What are the Hardy-Weinberg assumptions? What are the limitations of these when considering studying human allele frequencies?

Answer 1

Hardy weinberg equilibrium states that whenever mutation, migration, natural selection and genetic drift are not occurring on the population and the population is large in size and shows random mating, then it is under non evolving condition. At this stage, the allele frequencies and genotypic frequencies of the population remain constant across generations and sum to 1.

All of these forces are evolutionary forces which results in variation between progenies of same parent and also between progeny and parents. If none of these forces is acting on the population, then the population is said to be in an ideal condition. This population cannot be observed in reality in case of human beings. But this law is applicable to unicellular organisms which show asexual reproduction if mutation is also not occurring during reproduction.

This law is not be used for human beings and in fact many other plants and animals whose show gamete formation by meiosis. It is because in meiosis, crossing over and independent assortment results in the variation seen between progenies of same parent and also between parent and progeny. And whenever variations are there, the population is in an evolving condition. So this law cannot be used in all these organisms.

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