Consider a population in which the frequency of allele A is p=0.7 and the frequency of allele a is q=0.3 and where the alleles are codominant. What will be the allele frequencies after one generation if the following occurs?

wAA=1, wAa=0.9, waa=0.8

Key Concepts

Allele Frequency

Allele frequency refers to how often a particular allele appears in a population compared to other alleles for the same gene. It is calculated by dividing the number of copies of the allele by the total number of alleles for that gene in the population. In this question, the initial frequencies of alleles A and a are given as p=0.7 and q=0.3, respectively.

Fitness and Selection

Fitness in genetics refers to the reproductive success of an organism relative to others in the population. It is often quantified by the survival and reproduction rates of different genotypes. In this scenario, the fitness values (wAA, wAa, waa) indicate how well each genotype performs, influencing the allele frequencies in the next generation through natural selection.

Hardy-Weinberg Principle

The Hardy-Weinberg Principle provides a mathematical model to study genetic variation in a population under ideal conditions, where allele frequencies remain constant from generation to generation. However, when selection occurs, as indicated by the different fitness values in this question, the principle does not hold, and allele frequencies will change based on the relative fitness of the genotypes.