Iwas woudnering if you could help me with this problem. The answer key says that the answer is D and I have no idea why. The chart, included in the link, reads off a value of about .5 for the G locus for the year 1980
Finding the percent heterozygous should be as sipmle as 2(.5)(.5)=.5 I got .5 for g by simply taking the complement of the dominant trait G, gray, by doing 1-.5
Clearly I am doing something wrong. I do not know what I am doing wrong. Iw as woudnering if you could tell me the secret to this question as I can not get .67 for the life of me
Only 28% of the people who took this test got this question right and I can't figuer it out either...
h t t p : / / i m g 5 2 6 . i m a g e s h a c k . u s / i m g 5 2 6 / 4 6 7 7 / b i o f . p n g
Assuming that the population was in
Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium for the G locus, what percentage of the gray moths that emerged in 1980 was heterozygous?
(A) 0%
(B) 25%
(C) 33%
(D) 67%
(E) 100%
What you did was all right, but they're not asking a normal question involving all of the moths. They're asking for the percentage out of only the grey moths, which eliminates the moths with the gg phenotype.
Another, more useful way of finding the percent of heterozygous moths is using the formula
2pq = 1 - p^2 - q^2
*p is the frequency of the dominant gene, so p^2 is the % of the homozygous dominant moths (GG)
*q is the frequency of the recessive gene, so q^2 is the % of the homozygous recessive moths (gg)
As you said, p and q were both 0.5, so when they are squared, they both turn out to be 0.25. When we put them into the formula, we get
2pq = 1 - 0.25 - 0.25
= o.5
which is what you got as your answer.
However, since the question asks us for the percentage out of only the grey moths, we do not include the gg phenotypes as part of the final calculation. What's left is 75% of the population, of which 2/3 are heterozygous. That, converted into decimal form is 0.67, or 67%.
Borrowing from some of the work detailed above:
Solution: They're asking for the percentage out of only the grey moths, which eliminates the number of moths with the gg phenotype.
Grey (GG) moths = 0.25(2000) = 500
Grey (Gg) moths = 0.5 (2000) = 1000
The question asks us for the percentage out of only the grey moths: Therefore, 1000 (Gg) / 1500 (GG + Gg) is 0.67, or 67%.
Sorry, my original field was physics and my graduate degrees are in in engineering. Any high school student has more background in biology than I have.
To solve this problem, we need to use the Hardy-Weinberg equation. The Hardy-Weinberg principle states that the frequencies of alleles in a population will remain constant from generation to generation in the absence of other factors.
The equation for calculating the frequency of homozygous dominant individuals is p^2, where p is the frequency of the dominant allele. The equation for calculating the frequency of homozygous recessive individuals is q^2, where q is the frequency of the recessive allele.
In this problem, we are given the frequency of the dominant allele (G) in the year 1980, which is 0.5 (as indicated by the chart in the provided link). Since there are only two alleles for this locus (G and g), we can assume that the frequency of the recessive allele (g) is also 0.5 (1 - 0.5 = 0.5).
To find the frequency of heterozygous individuals, we can use the equation 2pq, where p is the frequency of the dominant allele (0.5) and q is the frequency of the recessive allele (0.5). Plugging these values into the equation:
2 * 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.5
So, the percentage of gray moths that emerged in 1980 and are heterozygous is 50%, which corresponds to answer choice C: 33%.
It is important to note that your initial calculation of 2 * 0.5 * 0.5 was correct. However, the resulting value of 0.5 represents the frequency, not the percentage. To convert it to a percentage, you need to multiply it by 100%.