In a population of 1000 flowers there are two possible alleles for flower color, one dominant and one recessive. 400 plants are homozygous dominant, 200 plants are heterozygous, and 400 plants are homozygous recessive.

How many recessive alleles are in the gene pool?

Question

In a population of 1000 flowers there are two possible alleles for flower color, one dominant and one recessive. 400 plants are homozygous dominant, 200 plants are heterozygous, and 400 plants are homozygous recessive.

How many recessive alleles are in the gene pool?

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

We start by outlining what we know: there are 1000 flowers in the population with two alleles for color: a dominant allele (let's call it A) and a recessive allele (a). The genotype counts are: AA = 400, Aa = 200, aa = 400. Each plant has two alleles, so the total number of alleles in the gene pool is 2 × 1000 = 2000.

Now, we count how many recessive alleles (a) are present:
- From aa individuals (homozygous recessive): each has two recessive alleles. There are 400 aa individuals, so they contribute 400 × 2 = 800 recessive alleles.
- From Aa individuals (heterozygous): each has one recessive allele and one dominant allele. There are 200 Aa individuals, so they contribute 200 × 1 = 200 recessive alleles.
- From AA individuals (homozygous dominant): they contribute 0 recessive alleles.

Total recessive alleles = 800 + 200 + 0 = 1000.

Now evaluate the answer choices:
- 600: This would be far too low; it might come from miscounting by forgetting that aa individuals contribute two recessive alleles and only counting heterozygotes, but that neglects the two recessive alleles per aa plant.
- 900: This could arise if one counted 800 from aa plus 100 from Aa, but heterozygotes actually contribute 200 recessive alleles, not 100.
- 1000: This matches the correct tally of recessive alleles (800 from aa plus 200 from Aa).
- 500: This is inconsistent with any straightforward accounting of recessive alleles given the counts; it ignores the contributions from both aa and Aa genotypes.

Therefore, the recessive allele count in the gene pool is 1000. The reasoning shows exactly how the allele contributions from each genotype add up to the total.

APBIO142-030 with labs 23.01 to 23.02 - Video Quiz

In a population of 1000 flowers there are two possible alleles for flower color, one dominant and one recessive. 400 plants are homozygous dominant, 200 plants are heterozygous, and 400 plants are homozygous recessive. How many recessive alleles are in the gene pool?

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