Population Genetics 1

Question 1

How do you calculate the allele frequency?

Answer 1

Number of copies of alleles in population/ Sum of all alleles in population*.

• Denominator is 2n for an autosomal gene in a population of n diploid organisms

Question 2

What is Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium?

Answer 2

When a population is not changing genetically, if assumptions are correct.

Question 3

What is the importance of Hardy-Weinberg?

Answer 3

• Without H-W, we could not tell that
  evolution is occurring
• The way in which a population deviates
  from H-W tells us something about what
  types of evolutionary force are operating
• We can test if a population is in H-W
  equilibrium with the X squared statistical test

Question 4

What are the assumptions of Hardy-Weinberg?

Answer 4

– Random mating
– Large N (population size)
– No migration between populations
– Negligible mutation
– Selection does not affect alleles being considered