Question

Can you please help?
Flowers in the population of plants you are studying can be red or pink. The allele for red flowers (R) is completely dominant over the allele for pink flowers (r). If 14% of the population has pink flowers, how would you determine the frequency of the recessive allele?

A. Square root of 0.14
B. Square root of 0.86
C. 1 – Square root of 0.14
D. 2 × 0.14 × 0.86

Answer 1

You should use the Goode Olde Castle Hardy Weinburg (CHW) equation: p^2 + 2pq + q^2 = 1 where p^2 is the frequency of the homozygous dominant phenotype, 2pq is the frequency of the heterozygous phenotype and q^2 is the frequency of the homozygous recessive phenotype.

The frequency of the homozygous recessive phenotype is given as 0.14 which gives you:

0.14 = q^2, where q is the frequency of the recessive allele the question asks you for. To find it, you should compute the square root of 0.14.