Genetic Population Analysis: Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium Calculation

How can we calculate the percentage of Black fur animals that are heterozygotes in a population?

Assume the gene for Black fur is dominant to tan fur in the population of animals. Given that 20% of the population is tan, what is the percentage of Black fur animals that are heterozygotes if the population is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium?

a. 62% of the black fur animals are heterozygotes. b. 55% of the black fur animals are heterozygotes. c. 45% of the black fur animals are heterozygotes. d. 30% of the black fur animals are heterozygotes.

Answer:

The percentage of Black fur animals that are heterozygotes, assuming the population is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, is approximately 59.5%. Option a. which is near to our answer.

In this question, we are given that the gene for Black fur is dominant to tan fur in a population of animals. We also know that 20% of the population is tan. To calculate the percentage of Black fur animals that are heterozygotes, we need to determine the frequency of the dominant allele (B) and the recessive allele (b) in the population.

Let's assume that the frequency of the dominant allele (B) is represented by p and the frequency of the recessive allele (b) is represented by q. Since Black fur is dominant, the frequency of the dominant allele (B) can be calculated as 1 - q, where q is the frequency of the recessive allele (b).

Given that 20% of the population is tan, we can calculate the frequency of the recessive allele (b) as the square root of 0.20, which is approximately 0.447.

Using the Hardy-Weinberg equation 2pq, we can calculate the frequency of heterozygotes (Bb) as 2 * p * q. Substituting the values, we get 2 * (1 - 0.447) * 0.447 = 0.595.

Therefore, the percentage of Black fur animals that are heterozygotes is approximately 59.5%.