Snapdragons have a pattern of heredity for flower color called incomplete dominance. If the flower-color genotypes are known in a population of snapdragons, you can calculate the allele frequencies for the flower-color alleles R and R’.

What are the frequencies of the R and R’ alleles in this population? Assume the conditions of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium apply.

Genotype frequency Allele frequency
RR = red = 0.5625 R=
RR’ = pink = 0.375
R’R’ = white = 0.0625 R'=

Answer choice: 0.75,0.50,0.25,0.125

According to Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium principle, in absence of any evolutionary developments, the alleles and genotypes of a living organism will remain at a constant from generation after generation.

Explanation:

Absence of evolutionary changes brings the change of genotypes frequencies to a standstill. Accordingly the punnett square method is also modified which give offsprings with following genotypes:

RR will be calculated as R square that gives 0.5625
RR' will be calculated as multiplication of R X R' that gives 0.375
R'R' will be calculated as R' square that gives 0.625

Hence the allele frequency of R is 0.75 and R' is 0.25 respectively.