Question

a) Describe one measure of evolutionary fitness.

(c) Based on the data, identify the population that is likely to have the highest frequency of heterozygotes. Assuming random mating, calculate the frequency of animals in population 1 that carry both alleles 1 and 3.

d) A sudden event drastically changes the habitat of each population such that most of the normal vegetation and insects are replaced by other vegetation and insects. One of the scientists claims that population 2 will be the most severely affected. Predict the most likely effect of the event on population 2. Provide reasoning to justify your prediction.

Answer 1

Answer:

a):

• One measure of evolutionary fitness will be the measurment of survival rate of different genotypes (homozygotes and heterozygotes of all three alleles) in the next generation for all populations.

c):

• On random mating, population 3 is likely to have the highest frequency of heterozygotes.
• Frequency of animals in population 1 that carry Alleles 1 and 3 = 2pq

= 2 x 0.60 (+ 0.05) x 0.25 (+ 0.02)

= 0.3 (+0.001)

d):

• Population 2 is most likely to be affected because the frequency of alleles 2 and 3 is very low and Allele 1 is reaching towards fixation.
• This implies that the natural environment favours Allele 1 in that population and selection is acting against other alleles.
• If there is a drastic change in the environment, then selection will act against allele 1 instead leading to severe decline in Allele 1 homozyogotes and heterozygotes of 3 alleles.
• The population may undergo a genetic bottleneck and eventually another allele other than Allele1 may undergo natural selection.
• Frequency of allele 1 will decrease drastically and that of other alleles will increase.

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