Question

In a population of heffalumps, there is a single gene that controls the presence of hair. The H allele, which is a complete dominant, makes a heffalump hairy, whereas the h allele codes for the absence of hair. If 36% of the heffalump population is hairless, what is the frequency of the h allele?

Answer 1

Frequency of allele

Explanation:

Hardy Weinberg Equilibrium is used to calculate the allelic as well as genotypic frequency

Allelic frequency of dominant and recessive allele is represented by p and q respectively whereas genotypic frequency of dominant genotype is represented by $p2$ and $q2$ respectively

Given:

H allele (p) = hairy heffalump (dominant)

h allele (q) = hairless heffalump (recessive)

36% of heffalump population is hairless represents the % of recessive genotype, hh ($q2$) =36%

Calculation of frequency of the h allele (q) :

Frequency of genotype hh ($q2$) will be: 36/100=0.36 or 0.6*0.6

Frequency of h allele (q) will be 0.6