There is an outbred population of mice living in a farmer’s field. Mutations occur at a gene called nurseryrhyme that cause a totally recessive form of blindness (h=0). These blind mice do not survive to reproduce because the farmer’s wife cuts off their tail (and other bits) with a carving knife. Surveying the field for baby mice you find that 3/10,000 mice are blind. A. Assuming that the population mates at random, what is the mutation rate of blindness causing alleles? B. Following more careful study you now find that there is actually a 20% reduction in the viability of heterozygotes for these mutations. What would you now estimate as the mutation rate for this gene?
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.
There is an outbred population of mice living in a farmer’s field. Mutations occur at a gene
called nurseryrhyme that cause a totally recessive form of blindness (h=0). These blind mice
do not survive to reproduce because the farmer’s wife cuts off their tail (and other bits) with
a carving knife. Surveying the field for baby mice you find that 3/10,000 mice are blind.
A. Assuming that the population mates at random, what is the mutation rate of blindness
causing alleles?
B. Following more careful study you now find that there is actually a 20% reduction in the
viability of heterozygotes for these mutations. What would you now estimate as the
mutation rate for this gene?
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