Final answer:
To determine if a beetle population has undergone evolutionary change, we would apply the Hardy-Weinberg principle and compare observed allele frequencies to the expected frequencies.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student's question pertains to whether a given population of beetles has undergone evolutionary change over the last decade.
To assess this, we would apply the Hardy-Weinberg principle, which provides a mathematical model of a non-evolving population.
The Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium formula, p² + 2pq + q² = 1, describes the expected frequencies of different genotypes in a population that is not subject to evolutionary forces, where 'p' represents the frequency of the dominant allele and 'q' represents the frequency of the recessive allele.
If a population is in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, we expect allelic frequencies to remain stable across generations, assuming there's no mutation, gene flow, non-random mating, genetic drift, or selection occurring.
To determine if evolution is happening in the beetle population, we would need to compare the observed frequency of alleles to those predicted by the Hardy-Weinberg equation.
A deviation from the expected frequencies would indicate that the population is indeed evolving, and we could then hypothesize which evolutionary forces are likely causing the change, such as natural selection, genetic drift, or gene flow.
To complete the question about the beetles, we would need actual data on allele frequencies, which wasn't provided.
But generally speaking, if the observed allelic distribution after measuring a sample from the population deviates from the predictions of the Hardy-Weinberg model, this indicates the presence of evolutionary forces at work on the population.