5a) A crazy cat lady has several dozen cats. Many of these cats are orange and t

Question

5a) A crazy cat lady has several dozen cats. Many of these cats are orange and the orange allele is present p(ccl) = 0.75 in her population of cats. While moving west to a bigger house her moving van overturns and all of her cats escape to a small, but isolated farming community. The frequency of the orange allele in the farm cat population is p(farm) = 0.20. If the crazy cat lady’s cats are 30% of the parents in the next generation, then what will be the new frequency of the orange allele after this migration?

Explanation / Answer

After such a migration event as described in the question, the resultant population, x, consists of migrant individuals (proportion m) and non-migrant individuals (proportion [1-m]). Thus the frequency of the an allele in population x in the next generation (px) is just the frequency in the non-migrant portion (= px [1-m]) plus the frequency in the migrant portion (py m), i.e.

px = px [1-m] + py m

Given that,

px = p(farm) = 0.20,

py = p(ccl) = 0.75, and

m = 30% = 0.3.

Therefore, px = 0.20×(1-0.30) + 0.75×0.30 = 0.14 + 0.225 = 0.365

Hence, the frequency of the orange allele after this migration will be 0.365.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse 5
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.