A population of birds has an average tarsus (part of the leg) length of 20 mm. T

Question

A population of birds has an average tarsus (part of the leg) length of 20 mm. The successful breeders in this population have an average tarsus length of 25 mm.
What is the selection differential?
If the narrow sense heritability tarsus length was 1.0, what would the average tarsus length of the offspring be?
If the narrow sense heritability of tarsus length was .5, what would the average tarsus length of the offspring be? A population of birds has an average tarsus (part of the leg) length of 20 mm. The successful breeders in this population have an average tarsus length of 25 mm.
What is the selection differential?
If the narrow sense heritability tarsus length was 1.0, what would the average tarsus length of the offspring be?
If the narrow sense heritability of tarsus length was .5, what would the average tarsus length of the offspring be?
What is the selection differential?
If the narrow sense heritability tarsus length was 1.0, what would the average tarsus length of the offspring be?
If the narrow sense heritability of tarsus length was .5, what would the average tarsus length of the offspring be?

Explanation / Answer

What is the selection differential? To calculate the selection differential you have to subtract from the population average the parental average as follows:

population average- parental average= 20-25= -0.5

Now, for the next two questions we have to use the Breeder’s equation in order to predict the evolutionary change in a trait, as follows:

DeltaZ= h2S

DeltaZ: refers to the change in the mean over one complete generation.

h2: narrow sense heritability.

S: selection differential.

When narrow sense heritability is equal to 1.0, the average tarsus length of the offspring will be:

DeltaZ= (1*(-0.5))= -0.5 now, the length of the offspring will be: 25-0.5= 24.5

When narrow sense heritability is equal to 0.5, the average tarsus length of the offspring will be:

DeltaZ= (0.5*(-0.5))= -0.25 now, the length of the offspring will be: 25-0.25= 24.75

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