You are studying three populations of beetles...

Question

Population A has 10 beetles, of which 1 is brown and 9 are red. Population B has 100 beetles, of which 10 are brown and 90 are red. Population C has 30 beetles; 3 of them are brown and 27 are red. In which population would it be most likely that a random accident would significantly alter the frequency of the brown allele?

Population A

Population B

Population C

All the populations are the same.

It is impossible to tell.

Answer 1

Hi Adrianna R.,

At least your second question today?

Frequency of expression of brown vs. red is the same (1:9) in all the populations. Therefore, you are looking for something relating to the size of the population. Are mutations more likely to skew a small, or a large, population's statistics (as % of the total population)? Note that this is different than asking, are mutations more likely to occur (per individual) in the various populations: random mutations occur at the same rate in populations, unless the causative mechanism differs!

Hope this hint is sufficient to set you on your way --

-- Cheers, -- Mr. d.