Question

Consider a population of speckled ducks. You count the number of genotypes at the FEATHER locus, which has two alleles: F & f: 66 ducks are FF, 103 ducks are Ff, and 74 ducks are ff. What is the estimated frequency of the F allele in this population?

A. 0.20
B. 0.33
C. 0.484
D. 0.71

Answer 1

The estimated frequency of the F allele in the population of speckled ducks is calculated by summing the F alleles from FF and Ff genotypes and then dividing by the total number of alleles in the population. With 66 FF ducks contributing 132 F alleles and 103 Ff ducks contributing another 103 F alleles, the frequency of the F allele is approximately 0.484.

Step-by-step explanation:

To estimate the frequency of the F allele in the population of speckled ducks, we need to consider the number of alleles in the entire population. We have 66 FF ducks, so there are 2 alleles for each (132 F alleles), 103 Ff ducks (103 F alleles), and 74 ff ducks contributing no F alleles. The total number of ducks is 66 + 103 + 74, and since each duck has 2 alleles at the FEATHER locus, the total number of alleles is 2*(66 + 103 + 74).

The formula to calculate the frequency of the F allele is (number of F alleles from FF + number of F alleles from Ff) divided by the total number of alleles. Plugging in the numbers we get:

Frequency of F = (2*66 + 103) / (2*(66 + 103 + 74)) = (132 + 103) / (2*(66 + 103 + 74)) = 235 / 486 ≈ 0.484.

The calculated frequency of the F allele in the population is therefore approximately 0.484, which corresponds to option C.