Consider the very small population of twelve pea plants shown
below. Each pea plant has two copies of the flower color gene. This
gene comes in a purple allele, W, and a white allele,
w.
(a) Given that p is the frequency of
the allele W and q the frequency of the allele
w in this population, calculate p and q.
Show your calculations, don’t just give the answer!
(b) Assuming that p’ is the frequency
of the allele W and q’ the frequency of the
allele w in the new generation shown above, calculate
p’ and q’.
(c) Is there a change in allele frequencies in
the population over generations? If yes, what does that mean in
terms of evolution?
(d) Briefly describe the different mechanisms
by which changes in allele frequencies occur in a population.
A population of twelve pea plants Ww WW Ww WW WW WW WW