"Quiglilies" are a rare variety of flower. They have one allele for orange petal colour O. They also have another allele for white petals W. These alleles have a co-dominant relationship producing a yellow petal colour.
i) what are the possible genotypes and phenotypes present in Quiglilies?
ii) After several generations it was noticed that the white allele disappeared from the genome. Explain this observation.
i) The possible genotypes in Quiglilies are OO (homozygous for orange petal color), WW (homozygous for white petal color), and OW (heterozygous). The phenotypes that can be observed are orange petals, white petals, and yellow petals resulting from the co-dominant relationship between the alleles.
ii) The disappearance of the white allele from the Quiglilies' genome can be explained by a process called genetic drift. Genetic drift refers to random changes in the frequency of alleles within a population over successive generations, which can lead to the loss of certain alleles. In this case, if the white allele (W) had a lower frequency within the population initially, it could have been lost due to chance events, such as sampling error or a series of mating events involving individuals carrying the orange allele (O). Over time, the white allele would have become increasingly rare, and eventually, it may have been completely lost from the gene pool of the Quiglilies population.