Question

Exobiologists have discovered under the surface of Mars an alien species of single-celled organisms, which undergo sexual reproduction, that have short or long flagella, and one or two vacuoles. From a sample population of approximately 320 of these organisms, they find that 65 have short flagella with a single vacuoles, 59 have long flagella with a double vacuole, 182 have long flagella with a single vacuole, and 14 have short flagella with a double vacuole. What would be the best assumption of the dominant and recessive phenotypes?

Answer 1

Answer:

The dominant phenotypes are Long flagella and one vacuole, and the recessive phenotypes are small flagella and two vacuoles.

Explanation:

As you can see in the attached table

1. For the size of the flagella we gave that:

- 241 organisms have long flagella

- 79 organisms have short flagella,

As there are more organisms with long flagella we can conclude that this is the dominant phenotype while the short flagella is the recessive phenotype.

2. For the number of vacuole we have:

- 247 organisms have one vacuole

- 73 organisms have two vacuole

As there are more organisms with one vacuole we can conclude that this is the dominant phenotype while having two vacuoles a is the recessive phenotype.

Then

Dominant phenotypes = Long flagella and one vacuole

Recessive phenotypes = Short flagella and two vacuoles