Question

Over the past half century, there has been a trend in the United States and other developed countries for people to marry and start families later in life than did their parents and grandparents. Describe what effects this trend might have on the incidence (frequency) of late-acting dominant lethal alleles in the population.

Answer 1

People know that the probability of having offspring with many genetic diseases increases with age so they either have less kids once they get older or are more likely to do genetic screening because of the likelihood of disease.

-if parents are older, they are more likely to be exhibiting symptoms of diseases like Huntington's that don't show up until later in life and less people will have kids if they are aware of a genetic disease that they have

Step-by-step explanation:

Answer 2

The frequency of lethal diseases will decrease.

Step-by-step explanation:

Lethal Alleles are described as "genes that carry out/cause diseases which cause the organism that posseses them to die".

Late-Acting Dominant Lethal Alleles are the ones that basically carry out the same purpose but can only be activated only if it is homozygous dominant or heterozygous, not applicable for homozygous recessive cases. Late-Acting stands to indicate that this terminal disease may not show any signs until the individual is maybe 40 or 50 years old. Such as in the case of Stephen Hawking for example.

The trend of people marrying later in life and maybe not having children until they are 30 should result in the decrease of the Late-Acting Dominant Lethal Alleles in the population.

I hope this answer helps.