Another condition that can occur in squirrel populations is the albino condition. In this condition, squirrels lack all pigmentation resulting in completely white fur and pink eyes. As with leucistic squirrels, albino squirrels are more conspicuous to predators. In addition, the lack of pigment in their eyes results in poor eyesight. These two conditions result in albino squirrels dying off before they reach maturity. If the lab simulation were to be repeated, but instead of leucism, the recessive condition in the population was albinism, what would you expect to see happen to the allele frequencies for normal pigmentation (G) and albinism (g) over the 10 generations? Remember that no albino (gg) individuals would survive to reproduce in each generation. Would you expect to find g alleles in the population by the 10th generation? Why or why not?
Genetic Variation
Genetic variation refers to the variation in the genome sequences between individual organisms of a species. Individual differences or population differences can both be referred to as genetic variations. It is primarily caused by mutation, but other factors such as genetic drift and sexual reproduction also play a major role.
Quantitative Genetics
Quantitative genetics is the part of genetics that deals with the continuous trait, where the expression of various genes influences the phenotypes. Thus genes are expressed together to produce a trait with continuous variability. This is unlike the classical traits or qualitative traits, where each trait is controlled by the expression of a single or very few genes to produce a discontinuous variation.
Another condition that can occur in squirrel populations is the albino condition. In this condition, squirrels lack all pigmentation resulting in completely white fur and pink eyes. As with leucistic squirrels, albino squirrels are more conspicuous to predators. In addition, the lack of pigment in their eyes results in poor eyesight. These two conditions result in albino squirrels dying off before they reach maturity.
If the lab simulation were to be repeated, but instead of leucism, the recessive condition in the population was albinism, what would you expect to see happen to the allele frequencies for normal pigmentation (G) and albinism (g) over the 10 generations? Remember that no albino (gg) individuals would survive to reproduce in each generation. Would you expect to find g alleles in the population by the 10th generation? Why or why not?
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