4.7 Investigating diversity

Question 1

How can genetic diversity be measured?

Answer 1

• Comparing frequency of observable characteristics
• Comparing DNA base sequence
• Comparing mRNA base sequence
• Comparing amino acid sequence of specific protein

Question 2

How can data be collected when investigating variation within a species?

Answer 2

• Divide area into grids
• Generate coordinates using a random number generator
• Place a quadrat here and count number / frequency of named species
• Standardise by only counting if more than half in the quadrat
• Repeat a large number of times so representative
• Calculate a running mean and sample until fairly constant