Question

In studying the gene pool of a population, you find that 21% of the population exhibits the recessive trait for eye color and the other 79% of the population exhibits the dominant trait. The dominant allele has complete dominance over the recessive allele. How would you use this information to solve for the frequency of the recessive allele?

Square root of 0.79
Square root of 0.21
0.792
1 – Square root of 0.21

Answer 1

Let q be the frequency of the recessive allele

In a complete dominance situation, like we have here, organisms with the recessive trait all have rr as the phenotype

Assuming hardy Weinberg eq, r^2 = the proportion of the population with the recessive trait

Re-read the problem, find the appropriate value of r^2, then solve for r

Answer 2

*small correction: rr is the genotype not the phenotype