Question

On your Spring Break in Mexico, you take a break to count the starfish in a tidal pool. You notice that there is a rare recessive trait that causes the starfish to have 6 legs instead of 5. Of the 27 starfish you can find, only 1 has 6 legs. What are the allele frequencies for this population

Answer 1

Answer:

0.04 for 6 legs starfish and 0.96 for 5 legs starfish.

Explanation:

The allele frequency for the 6 legs starfish is 0.04 whereas, the allele frequency for the 5 legs starfish is 0.96 because there is only one 6 legs starfish in the given population as compared to 5 legs starfish. The low population of 6 legs starfish is due to the presence of recessive allele while on the other hand, higher population of 5 legs starfish is due to the presence of dominant allele. The allele frequencies for both population is done by dividing the allele of interest by total number of alleles present in the population.