Name: _________________________ Section Leader:_________________ Section Time:____________

L111 Discussion Section: Spring 2019 Week 6

Dr. Tara Darcy, tldarcyh@indiana.edu Discussion assignment

Problem Set: HWE or Natural Selection?

Directions:
* Print the sheet and fill it out. Show all of your work for each problem. DO NOT USE BLUE INK OR PENCIL.
* Base your answers on lecture material and assigned readings. (That is all you need).
* Show your work. This direction also applies to the multiple choice questions. You must show work to get credit.
* Regrade option: You can fix two problems in section. Use separate paper. Write the correct answer in blue, and describe
where you went wrong and what you learned.

*** These problems are designed to reinforce and extend the quantitative components of class. Practice and stretching
makes facing the equations much easier – and they build your skills. Write out the formulas used, then write the
calculations involved. Always provide evidence for your answer (i.e., show your work). ***

(1) You are studying a population of elephants who have genotype frequencies of f(EE) = 0.2, f(Ee) = 0.6, and
f(ee) = 0.2. You observe a major drought event; a lot of elephants die (i.e., mortality rate is high). After the
drought, you genotype the survivors, and you find that f(EE) = 0.1, f(Ee) =0.8, and f(ee) = 0.1 – the
heterozygotes have become more frequent. Has evolution occurred following this mortality event?

(A) Yes.
(B) No.
(C) There is not enough information here to determine the answer.

Show your work to receive credit.

(2) Note: this is a new kind of question – but just think through it, you can answer it with what you know from
HWE and Natural Selection lectures.

Consider a population with 1,000 individuals consisting of genotype frequencies f(YY) = 0.74, f(Yy)= 0.24, and
f(yy) = 0.02. Genotype yy suffers from a lethal genetic disease (yy individuals die before reproducing); Y is
dominant to y.

How many copies of the recessive lethal allele y are there in this population? Show your work.

How many copies of the y allele are exposed to natural selection? (When we have the lethal recessive, only
yy individuals die; heterozygotes, Yy, do not suffer symptoms). Show your work.

(3). Imagine a population of individuals of three genotypes (ZZ, Zz, and zz), and the genotype frequencies are
f(ZZ) = 0.70, f(Zz) = 0.20, and f(zz)= 0.10.

What relative fitness, ωzz would be necessary to increase f(zz) from 0.10 to 0.15 after a selection event? Justify
your answer by showing your work.
(4) Imagine that you study red squirrels in Britain. Before an outbreak of a pox virus (spread by grey squirrels),
you determine genotype frequencies at a key gene coding for immune defense: f0(BB) = 0.4, f0(Bb) = 0.2, f0(bb)
= 0.4. After the mortality event, you re-genotype the squirrels that survived. You find the following genotype
frequencies: fa(BB) = 0.2, fa(Bb) = 0.3, fa(bb) = 0.5. How could you best describe these results?

(A) There has been no evolution by natural selection. The genotypes were not at Hardy-Weinberg
equilibrium (HWE) to start.
(B) There has been evolution by natural selection. Frequency of the B allele increased from 0.50 to 0.65,
while frequency of the b allele decreased from 0.50 to 0.35.
(C) There has been evolution by natural selection. Frequency of the b allele increased from 0.50 to 0.65,
while frequency of the B allele decreased from 0.50 to 0.35.
(D) Evolution likely occurred, but we cannot calculate how much - we always need to know relative fitness
for each genotype first.

Justify your answer (i.e., show your work to arrive at your answer):

(5) A full-blown Natural Selection problem

Assume that, in a population of 1000 individuals, height is under the genetic control of one gene with two
alleles. AA = Tall, Aa = Med, aa = short. Assume this population is in Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium before
selection, and returns to HW genotypic proportions every generation as the result of random mating. You find
that before selection f(A) = p = 0.6. During youth, there is no selection according to height, but once maturity is
reached you find the following data. On average, tall individuals survive to produce 3 children, medium
individuals survive to have 6 kids, and short individuals survive to have 1 kid. You find that this pattern holds
regardless of the frequency of each genotype.

(A) What are the genotype and allele frequencies before selection?
(B) Assume that the relative fitness values are as follows: ωTall = 0.73, ωMed = 1.46, ωshort = 0.24.

What are the allele frequencies after selection? (Remember: First, calculate genotype frequencies, then
allelic frequencies - show all of these steps).

(C) Is there evidence for evolution in this population? Justify your answer, quantitatively.

(D) After random mating, what is the frequency of each genotype in the youths of the next generation (i.e.
before selection acts - make new offspring from the alleles in [B])?
(E) Extra credit: If the relative fitness of the three genotypes remains constant (i.e., it does not change from
generation to generation), what do you expect the population will eventually look like genetically (i.e., what
will be the frequencies of the genotypes, relative to where the population started)? Explain, qualitatively.