estimating risk of inherited genetic disease

Question 1

what is “fitness” with regard to organisms and their survival?

Answer 1

relative ability of organisms to survive and pass on genes

Question 2

what is the hardy weinberg equilibrium?

Answer 2

allele frequencies remain constant generation to generation

relative proportion of genotype frequencies remain constant generation to generation

Question 3

what are some assumptions underlying the HWE?

Answer 3

mutation can be ignored
migration is negligible
mating is random
no selective pressure
population size is large
allele frequencies are equal in the sexes

Question 4

what does non random mating lead to?

Answer 4

increase in the frequency of mutant alleles

Question 5

what is genetic drift?

Answer 5

when a random fluctuation of one allele is transmitted to a high proportion of offspring by chance