Question

In studying the gene pool of a population, you find that 21% of the population exhibits the recessive trait for eye color and the other 79% of the population exhibits the dominant trait. The dominant allele has complete dominance over the recessive allele. How would you use this information to solve for the frequency of the recessive allele?

a.) Square root of 0.79
b.) Square root of 0.21
c.) 0.792
d.) 1 – Square root of 0.21

Answer 1

The answer is d to me I think

Answer 2

The answer is letter b; the square root of 0.21.

According to The Hardy–Weinberg formulas; p2 + 2pq + q2 = 1 and p + q = 1, where;

p: frequency of the dominant allele in the population
q: frequency of the recessive allele in the population
p2: percentage of homozygous dominant individuals
q2: percentage of homozygous recessive individuals
2pq: percentage of heterozygous individuals

And, according to the given; q2 = 21% = 21/100 = 0.21, therefore; q = square root of 0.21, which is answer letter b