BIOL276
Dr. Young
Name _______________________
Quantitative and Population Genetics Problems Set
Many of the questions/problems in the text are very useful for practice. Without ignoring
the other questions/problems, make sure that you can work through the following:
Chapter 21, Questions 12, 14, 16, 18 (answers are in the text)
Chapter 22, Questions 6, 7, 8 (answers to 6 and 8 are in the text)
Formula
Variance
Standard deviation
Covariance
Correlation coefficient
Phenotypic variance VP = VG + VE + VGE
VG = VA + VD + VI
VP = VA + VD + VI + VE + VGE
Broad-sense heritability
Narrow-sense heritability
Response to selection R = h2 x S where S is the selection differential
1.
Two pairs of independently segregating genes with two alleles each, A/a and B/b,
determine plant height additively in a population. The homozygote AA BB is 50 cm tall,
and the homozygote aa bb is 30 cm tall.
a.
What is your prediction of the F1 height in a cross between two homozygous stocks?
b. What genotypes in the F2 will show a height of 40 cm after an F1 x F1 cross?
c.
What will be the F2 frequency of the 40 cm plants?
d.
What assumptions have you made in answering these questions?
2.
A quantitative geneticist determines the following variance components for leaf
width in a population of wildflowers growing along a roadside in Kentucky:
Additive genetic variance (VA) = 4.2
Dominance genetic variance (VD) = 1.6
Genic interaction variance (VI) = 0.3
Environmental variance (VE) = 2.7
Genetic-environmental variance (VGE) = 0.0
a.
Calculate the broad-sense heritability and the narrow-sense heritability for
leaf width in this population of wildflowers.
b.
3.
What do these calculated heritabilities indicate about the genetic nature of
leaf width variation in this plant?
Ten male Harvard students were weighed in 1916. Their weights are given below.
Calculate the mean, variance, and standard deviation for these weights.
Weight (kg) of Harvard students (class of 1920): 51, 69, 69, 57, 61, 57, 75, 105, 69, 63
4.
The heights of mothers and daughters are given in the following table.
Height of mother (inches)
Height of daughter (inches)
64
66
65
66
66
68
64
65
63
65
63
62
59
62
62
64
61
63
60
62
Calculate the correlation coefficient for the heights of the mothers and daughters.
5.
Phenotypic variation in tail length of mice has the following components:
Additive genetic variance (VA)
0.5
Dominance genetic variance (VD)
0.3
Genic interaction variance (VI)
0.1
Environmental variance (VE)
0.4
Genic-environmental interaction variance (VGE) 0.0
a.
What is the narrow-sense heritability of tail length?
b.
What is the broad-sense heritability of tail length?
6.
A characteristic has a narrow-sense heritability of 0.6.
a.
If the dominance variance (VD) increases and all other variance components
remain the same, what will happen to the narrow-sense heritability? Explain.
b.
What will happen to the broad-sense heritability? Explain.
c.
If the environmental variance (VE) increases and all other variance components
remain the same, what will happen to the narrow-sense heritability? Explain.
d.
What will happen to the broad-sense heritability? Explain.
7.
A graduate student, Lorena, is studying a population of bluebonnets along a roadside. The
plants in this population are genetically variable. Lorena counts the seeds produced by
100 plants and measures the mean and variance of seed number. The variance is 20.
Selecting one plant, Lorena takes cuttings from it and cultivates these cuttings in the
greenhouse, eventually producing many genetically identical clones of the same plant.
She then transplants these clones into the roadside population, allows them to grow for
one year, and then counts the number of seeds produced by each of the cloned plants. The
graduate student finds that the variance of seed number among these cloned plants is 5.
From the phenotypic variance of the genetically variable and genetically identical plants,
she calculates the broad-sense heritability.
What is the broad-sense heritability of seed number for the roadside population of
bluebonnets?
8.
Joe is breeding cockroaches in his dorm room. He finds that the average wing length in
his population of cockroaches is 4 cm. He picks six cockroaches that have the largest
wings; the average wing length among these selected cockroaches is 10 cm. Joe
interbreeds these selected cockroaches. From previous studies, he knows that the narrowsense heritability for wing length in his population of cockroaches is 0.6.
a.
Calculate the selection differential and expected response to selection for wing
length in these cockroaches.
b.
What should be the average wing length of the progeny of the selected
cockroaches?
9.
Three characteristics in beef cattle – body weight, fat content, and tenderness – are
measured and the following variance components are estimated:
VA
VD
VI
VE
VGE
Body weight
22
10
3
42
0
Fat content
45
25
8
64
0
Tenderness
12
5
2
8
1
In this population, which characteristic would respond best to selection? Explain your
reasoning.
10.
The narrow-sense heritability of wing length in a population of Drosophila melanogaster
is 0.8. The narrow-sense heritability for head width in the same population is 0.9. The
genetic correlation between wing length and head width is -0.86. If a geneticist selects for
increased wing length in these flies, what will happen to head width?
11.
Pigs have been domesticated from wild boars. Would you expect to find higher
heritability for weight among domestic pigs or wild boars? Explain your answer.
12.
Full color (D) in domestic cats is dominant over dilute color (d). Of 325 cats observed,
194 have full color and 131 have dilute color.
a.
If these cats are in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium for the dilution locus, what is the
frequency of the dilute allele?
b.
How many of the 194 cats with full color are likely to be heterozygous?
13.
Tay-Sachs disease is an autosomal recessive disorder. Among Ashkenazi Jews, the
frequency of Tay-Sachs disease is 1 in 3,600. If the Ashkenazi population is mating
randomly for the Tay-Sachs gene, what proportion of the population consists of
heterozygous carriers of the Tay-Sachs allele?
14.
In the plant Lotus corniculatus, cyanogenic glycoside protects the plants against insect
pests and even grazing by cattle. This glycoside is due to a simple dominant allele. A
population of L. corniculatus consists of 77 plants that possess cyanogenic glycoside and
56 that lack the compound. What is the frequency of the dominant allele that results in the
presence of cyanogenic glycoside in this population?