Question

In a tropical forest there is a species of bird that has a variable tail length. Long is incompletely dominant over short. In one population of 2000 birds, 614 have long tails, 973 have medium length tails, and 413 birds have short tails. What is the frequency of each allele in the population

Answer 1

Answer:

Frequency of long trait allele $= 0.55$

Frequency of long trait allele $= 0.45$

Explanation:

Given -

Total Number of birds  - $2000$

Let us assume the given population is in Hardy Weinberg's equation -

Frequency of individuals with birds having long tails is depicted by $p^2$

Frequency of individuals with birds having short tails is depicted by $q^2$

Frequency of individuals with birds having medium tails is depicted by $2pq$

Frequency of individuals with birds having long tails

$\frac{614}{2000} * 100\\= 30.7$

$p^2 = .307\\p = 0.554$

Frequency of individuals with birds having short tails

$\frac{413}{2000} *100\\20.65$

$q^ 2 = 0.2065\\q = 0.4544$

Rounding off the values of p and q we get

Frequency of long trait allele $= 0.55$

Frequency of long trait allele $= 0.45$

Sum of both  p and q should be unity

$0.55+ 0.45 = 1$