Question

Suppose that Gene B occurs in a sea turtle gene pool where the frequency of the B1 allele is 0.5 and the frequency of the B2 allele is 0.4. What is the frequency of the B3 allele, assuming that there are only three alleles in the population?

Answer 1

Answer:

Frequency of the B3 allele $= 0.1$

Explanation:

The allele frequencies in a given population remain constant which means that every generation will have the same gene pool across the generations. As per Hardy Weinberg’s first equilibrium equation, the sum of frequency of all the alleles at a given locus is equal to one  

Thus, if "p" represents the frequency of B1 allele and "q" represents the frequency of B2 allele and "r" represents the allele for B3 allele. Then, sum or "p", "q" and "r" is equal to one.

$p+q+r = 1$

Substituting the given values, we get -

$0.5 + 0.4 + r = 1\\0.9 + r = 1\\r = 1-0.9\\r = 0.1$