Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium Lab Report

Introduction This experiment was performed to test the effects of different evolutionary forces on a population that would normally be in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. These three forces being tested will be tested individually, in pairs, and finally all three together. Hardy-Weinberg Equilibrium is the theory that a single gene in a population of diploid organisms will not change in allele proportions over generations as long as certain conditions are met. “Another generation of random mating led by direct calculation to the same proportions among the offspring and ‘We thus obtain the same distribution of pure types and hybrids for each generation under panmixia’ (Weinberg 1908). Weinberg then uses his result to work out the numbers of the two phenotypes to be expected among the relatives of an individual of known phenotype, but this does not now concern us. Rather, he has established the ‘Hardy–Weinberg law’ in the most obvious and direct manner,(Edwards)” explains that by meeting the correct conditions a population can have the same genotype proportions from one generation to the next. These conditions include: random mating regarding the gene in question, a …show more content…
This software was used to simulate a population under the given parameters and how changing those parameters to mimic evolutionary forces changes the genotype and allele frequencies of the population. For stabilizing selection the fitness of the red (RR) and white (rr) genotypes were lowed to .5 while the fitness of pink (Rr) was kept at 1. For positive assortment the assortment level was raised from zero to .5. For genetic drift the population was lowered from 500 to 100. These parameters were combined for each scenario where more than one evolutionary force was used. The chi-square analysis was used to determine if the differences between the observed and expected frequencies could be attributed to random