AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -To determine q, which is the frequency of the recessive allele in the population, simply take the square root of q2 which works out to be 0.632 (i.e. 0.632 x 0.632 = 0.4). So, q = 0.63. Since p + q = 1, then p must be 1-0.63 = 0.37.

Detailed explanation-2: -Finding p. Once we know q, we can simply subtract q from 1 to find the frequency of p. This works only in a simplified scenario, where p and q are the only alleles and account for 100% of the total alleles. In this case, p will be equal to 60% of the alleles, or 0.6.

Detailed explanation-3: -In the question, the genotype frequency of recessive population is (q2) = (16% or 0.16). Hence, frequency of recessive allele = q = 0.16 = 0.4.

Detailed explanation-4: -To find the allele frequencies, we again look at each individual’s genotype, count the number of copies of each allele, and divide by the total number of gene copies.