Question at position 2 Drosophila melanogaster has four pairs of chromosomes. Sperm from this species are formed by a meiotic process in which no crossing over occurs. How many genetically different kinds of sperm could be produced by a Drosophila melanogaster male?481664256

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Question at position 2 Drosophila melanogaster has four pairs of chromosomes. Sperm from this species are formed by a meiotic process in which no crossing over occurs. How many genetically different kinds of sperm could be produced by a Drosophila melanogaster male?481664256

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

In Drosophila melanogaster, each sperm cell receives one chromosome from each homologous pair during meiosis. Since there are four pairs of chromosomes, and no crossing over occurs, the choice of which member of each pair goes into a given sperm is independent for the four pairs. The total number of genetically distinct sperm is 2^n, where n is the number of chromosome pairs, so here 2^4 = 16.

Option 4: This would correspond to only two chromosome pair choices, which would be the case if there were 2 pairs or if independent assortment did not occur for all pairs. It’s too small for four pairs.

Option 8: This would imply 2^3 combinations, suggesting only three independent segregation events, which isn’t correct when there are four pairs.

Option 16: This is the correct mathematical result for four independent chromosome pairs with no crossing over, yielding 16 distinct sperm genotypes.

Option 64: This would be 2^6, implying six independent segregation events, which exceeds the four chromosome pairs in this organism.

Option 256: This would be 2^8, suggesting eight independent segregation events, again not matching the four chromosome pairs present.

Question at position 2 Drosophila melanogaster has four pairs of chromosomes. Sperm from this species are formed by a meiotic process in which no crossing over occurs. How many genetically different kinds of sperm could be produced by a Drosophila melanogaster male?481664256

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