Practice question · Numerical answer
In a population at Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium the dominant allele has frequency . What percentage of the population are heterozygotes?
Hints
- Heterozygote frequency is 2pq, and q is 1 minus p.
- Compute 2 x 0.7 x 0.3, then express as a percentage.
Show the answer
42 (answers within ±1 count)
Why
, so , or 42 %. Heterozygotes peak at 50 % when both alleles are equally common, and fall away as either allele becomes rare.
Practise Speciation and the Origin of Diversity
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Biology I is free to start.
More questions on Speciation and the Origin of Diversity
- Why is Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium useful even though real populations rarely satisfy its conditions?
- Sort each isolating mechanism by when it acts.
- Natural selection systematically favours prezygotic over postzygotic reproductive barriers during divergence.…
- Arrange the stages of allopatric speciation in order.
- The end-Permian mass extinction removed an estimated 90 % of marine species. Set the percentage that survived.